Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

Somehow, after their talk in the chapel, Elaine felt simultaneously more accepting of and more irritated by her future husband. On the one hand, seven years had clearly been good to him. He seemed more sincere and thoughtful than he had been before his disappearance, and he had a more mature (dare she say, handsome?) look to him. On the other hand, there were clearly some things that made even time throw up its hands in vain and say, "To hell with this!" Guybrush was still inexorably prone to disastrous accidents if the story about the Pox of LeChuck was anything to go by, and he was so obviously keeping something important from her that any passing dolt in the Institute would have been able to tell. In the end, that eternal underlying sweetness of his that won out, keeping her from punching him again, at least. That was only by a hairs width, though. Her snugglecakes was going to have to stay on his best behaviour if he knew what was good for him.

She left the Mighty Pirate™ alone for the time being when the announcement of the next shift went off. He would want some time to catch up with Morgan next, presumably. As much as the woman's attitude bothered her, she was a friend of Guybrush's, as she had claimed. Elaine could be strict, but she wasn't the kind of shrewish future wife/past fiancé who would keep her man from seeing his friends. Besides, she needed some more time to catch up on the goings-on of the Institute. Patients filled the building to the brim, now, it seemed; there would be a lot to investigate.

After a few quick trips back and forth to the bulletin and a few new leads to follow up on, the governor gave in to her nurse's persistent nagging and headed to the cafeteria for brunch. After the relatively light fare of the day before, Elaine took advantage of the Institute's admittedly scrumptious offerings and loaded up a full, balanced brunchfast of eggs, sausage links, waffles, and vegetable soup. As expected, the selection of drinks did not offer either root beer or grog. Grog she could live without, at least, she thought while making a face. Eugh. For now, she settled for a tall glass of water.

Elaine settled into a seat in the cafeteria and tucked into her meal. Her eyes didn't stay on her food, though, instead gazing around restlessly; she hadn't seen LeChuck so far this morning, and god forbid he wanted to invite himself to brunch with her if he chose now to show up. A certain horribly unpleasant dinner on Mêlée Island came to mind. She was prepared to either move at the first sign of the dread pirate or signal a random stranger to sit with her before he could.

[For Dean]

Comments

[remedying.livejournal.com]

"It made it a little obvious," Yukari replied, absentmindedly rolling some of the food around on her plate with the end of a fork. His next statement stirred another mildly surprised look on her part, if only because it sounded like the chances of that ever happening seemed slim. Finding out you're from the same place only after arriving here? Well, it was good they had something like common ground to go by, at least.

"Oh," Yukari suddenly piped up after a quick second of silence, realization striking her. "You know Shinichi-kun, too?" A beat, and then it dawned upon her that an explanation for that was probably in order; "I've only talked to him a couple of times, but when I first saw him, I thought he was Kaito-kun. That was a little embarrassing... How's he been, anyway? When I saw him last, it was because he and a couple of others were getting their injuries healed."

[osakapwnzu.livejournal.com]

Oh. Shinichi-kun was it? Heiji tried to hide his smug grin, but ultimately failed.

"Yeah, yeah, I know Kudou. 'E's th' 'Great Detective of th'East', 'n I'm th' 'Great Detective of th'West'. We're rivals." Well, on paper and when the situation got particularly heated. Nowadays, they weren't butting heads nearly as often, though Heiji felt as though the same tense competition was still there in some situations.

"'E's okay," Heiji said, spearing a strawberry. Sen's death had sort of shoved the issue with accusing Kaito of being Kid under the rug, which Heiji did appreciate. He'd thought that maybe some things were more important to Shinichi, but obviously Heiji being distraught was more important to Shinichi than a case. "Seems a little stir-crazy lately, but okay," he said with a smile. 'Stir-crazy' was the best he could come up with instead of 'freaked out about turning into a six-year-old in front of a stranger'.

[remedying.livejournal.com]

"A detective?" Curiosity piqued-- and this time, with a topic she can further inquire on-- Yukari leaned further in on the table. "I wouldn't have guessed, actually. Right off the bat he was pretty serious about the whole detective thing... Then again, you can never guess who or what anyone around this place is anymore."

She shook her head, shrugging her shoulders. "If 'stir-crazy' is the worst of it, I guess that's good to know. There's plenty of other worse things you could be saying."

[osakapwnzu.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, right...?" Heiji laughed, managing to not look like he was hiding a secret the size of... well. He could make any number of size cracks at this point in time.

"But yeah, I'mma detective. My dad's a detective with th'police, s'I get a lot of practice at least. 'N I'm way better at it than Kudou is," he said with a wide grin. "Cooler too, dontcha think?" he added, turning to display what he thought was his 'best angle'. If anything, it was something to distract from why Shinichi wasn't himself or was at least nervous.

[remedying.livejournal.com]

Yukari sat in silence, hand at her chin, eying Heiji closely with a sharp gaze. She appeared to be deeply mulling over the question given to her, up until the facade fell with a cracked grin and a 'pffft' noise she failed to muffle well enough.

"You're already asking me questions like that?" Yukari asked through more soft laughter, then moving her hand over her mouth to conceal the snickering. Oh, what an ego this one had! Boys were always the same no matter where you went. "If you want an answer, you're gonna have to give me more time. You can't decide if a guy is 'cool' so easily, y'know?" Although, Heiji was already proving to be far more laid back as far as first impressions went, and Yukari couldn't deny she liked that out of a person. She didn't do too well with the stiff, serious business types.

[osakapwnzu.livejournal.com]

For a moment, Heiji thought he'd just totally screwed himself. With his luck, Yukari was like Ran or Kazuha: martial arts prodigy, will-throw-you-over-this-table-and-then-your-breakfast-follows-chick. Hadn't Shinichi told him that Ran had put her fist through a cement pole one time?

He was about to say that he was totally kidding and if she was going to hit him, not the writing arm or the face please, when she started laughing. Half-relieved, half-amused by his own joke, he laughed with her.

"Hey, y'know all three'f us. N' first impressions're the best evidence, yeah?" he grinned. Of course that was completely untrue, but he was taking his ridiculous distraction and running with it. How many times had someone looked perfectly nice, but ended up killing four or five people? And hadn't that doctor-woman Shinichi had dealt with ended up being a man? Yeah, screw first impressions.

"But if y'need some time t'realize I'm way awesome-er than Kuroba 'r Kudou, I c'n wait," he conceded with a dramatic shrug. "'M not known f'r my patience, but maybe I'll survive this wait."