damned_institute | Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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]

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"You ate the same amount at home too and we didn't even do that much," Kairi teased, grinning. "Good to know some things never change."

Turning to look at Riku, the princess smiled in greeting before chewing on another bite of fruit, listening to Sora as he continued to ask how their night went. Truthfully, she was interested - she had waited for them, after all, and after a few minutes of not showing up, she decided to simply carry on without them. Hopefully they hadn't waited for her and she had never showed up - she would feel terrible.

"Well," she began, pushing around a grape on her plate, "I waited for you two for a little bit ... but when you guys didn't come I went off on my own," she admitted, hoping Sora and Riku wouldn't get too angry at her for being "reckless." Though, was it truly reckless when she had a weapon at her disposal? She didn't think so.

"Anyway," she continued, "I met with a man who looked to be alone, so we traveled around together and appeared in ... random ... places," she paused, frowning, before continuing once again. "Like the forest. And ... and somewhere where there were animals in cages ... screaming and howling. It was terrible."

"We had the random appearing, too," Riku began, and realized that "was" wasn't as telling as it could have been. He thought of Tsubaki's words on the bulletin board, and he realized that it was a problem all over the institute. People were turning up left and right in unusual locations, and it didn't make any sense. Some ended up seeing their homes. Riku wondered how Naminé would have reacted to Destiny Islands. From their memories, she had scene it, but standing there, with the sand over their feet, would have been a lot different.

"I was out with Naminé," he went on. "I found her, and we decided to travel together." It was easier to relate what they did rather than what he didn't do, which was find out any information that would be of use for them. Still, Riku struggled to go on, and quickly focused on his food. He knew that this would be a sure way for his friends to tell that things hadn't gone as well as he wanted, but he didn't care. Let them ask. Riku's disappointed face was a pretty obvious one by now, anyway.

It sounded like it was just a bunch of miscommunication that had caused them all to end up doing different things last night, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, seeing how none of them had been hurt. Well, Sora had, but he'd woken up with no wound whatsoever, so he could count himself lucky there.

The places that Kairi mentioned ending up sounded like they were areas around Landel's itself (even if Sora hadn't been to either), rather than going home or to the home of the man she'd been with. Riku also didn't mention anything out of the ordinary, so had what had happened to him and Neku been special somehow?

"I was with Neku," he said, glancing back to Kairi. "You've met him, right?" It was a shame she hadn't been able to come along with them, but at least she'd found someone to spend the night with, even if it'd been a stranger. "And... we were going upstairs to search this file room, but we walked through the door and ended up at his home. The only thing was that it was completely deserted!" That was likely to interest both of them, though not as much as if it had been Destiny Islands.

Then again, having to tell them that would have been kind of tough, since he would have wanted to see it with them. Maybe it was better this way. Sora took another bite of his hot dog as he quietly thought it over.

"I know Neku," Kairi said with a smile, embarrassment crossing her features. "On my first day back I mistook his hair for yours. You had to admit you both have the same crazy hair! It wasn't my fault."

However, at the mention of his home, she blinked in surprise. "Japan? Oh, what was it called ..." she tapped her fingers against her lips for a moment before finally speaking. "Oh! Shibuya, right?" She was jealous, she admitted to herself. During her travels with Carter last night, neither of them had been lucky enough to walk through a door and into one of their homes. If she had been to Destiny Islands ...

She didn't want to think about it, though. Going back there without the two of them didn't make it home, just like it wasn't home before.

Turning to Riku, Kairi held up her fork, preparing to stab at another piece of fruit. "How is she? Naminé ... I ... haven't spoken to her in a while ..." and for that she felt utterly terrible. She was being a horrible Other. She only hoped that the blonde didn't take it as a sign that she didn't care, because that was completely wrong.

It was just as Riku thought. Strange that Sora didn't end up going home, but it made sense. With everything that happened, it seemed unlikely that Landel would allow Sora to take a trip home. Hopping worlds was something he did best, Riku thought, and it went along with his life now that he wouldn't be able to explore familiar territory. Of course, Landel wouldn't want to give Sora a few more minutes at home. Why would he?

He didn't speak his mind on that matter, and decided to look into the different home situations himself. There were enough notes on the bulletin board to look at, so he decided that was what he would do. Riku could relate what he figured out to his friends later.

"She's good," Riku replied. Nothing too eventful seemed to be going on with her, which was a good thing. "She doesn't go out at night, usually. It's the best way to handle this place with how she is, I think." That still meant that he wanted to check on her this night, too. After all, there was always the chance that things she would need someone to accompany her again, and he didn't like the idea of her moving through this place alone. Even more than Kairi, she wasn't as capable of handling herself.

It wasn't a shock to hear that Kairi had thought Neku was him, and Sora didn't take it personally. "I know," he said with a smile, "it is kind of weird. Did he tell you about Shiki?" It was strange enough that he had a lookalike, but the fact that Neku was also friends with someone who had hair that was almost exactly the same color as Kairi's was pretty weird. Then there was Joshua, but Sora didn't want to think about that right now...

But it sounded like Neku had told Kairi about his home, too. When she asked the question, he nodded. "Yeah, it was this huge city, but there wasn't anyone around except for us. We did run into some monsters, though." It was just their luck that they only found trouble, though maybe that had been the point. On the other hand, it wasn't like his wound had stayed when he'd woken up this morning. Which still didn't make much sense, but Sora wasn't going to complain.

It was good to hear that Naminé was doing well, but it also reminded Sora that he needed to get a hold of her. "I've got to talk to her about getting some maps," he spoke up, somewhat sheepish. He knew he should have gotten his hands on them by now, but he'd always been able to muddle through without them. "Maybe I can go see her about that tonight..."

"I'm glad," Kairi whispered in response to her Nobody's well being. Honestly, she missed the girl ... she hadn't seen her in a while. She'd have to rectify that.

At the mention of Shiki, she turned towards Sora with a nod. "He did ... pretty strange, but somehow interesting, you know? To think that there's someone else out there who looks like me wandering around that's not Naminé!" Doppelganger ... times two? She longed to meet Shiki, just to see how similar they appeared. Apparently she even acted like her as well.

"Will we be meeting up tonight?" she asked the two boys, unsure if they wanted to travel around together or spend the night apart again. Honestly, Kairi had no preference - she'd do whatever the two decided.

The mention of Neku and his world was interesting to Riku, but as he didn't know the guy, it wasn't like he had much to say on it. He filed away the information as important: Neku was someone important to them, and there was a girl who looked like Kairi. If she ever showed up here, Riku imagined he'd notice her. It was hard not to notice someone who looked like Kairi. He'd been looking at her for the important years of his life, and she was always important to him.

He simply nodded to Kairi's response—a slight angling of his head forward—but added nothing else as she went on. It was weird that there could be someone who looked like them, and he wondered if there was one for him. A part of Riku just hoped whoever it was didn't make mistakes like him, too.

"It depends on what you wanna do, I guess." A part of Riku itched for action, but he realized it was because he had been so unsuccessful otherwise. Maybe the others would have a better plan.

Kairi had an interesting point. Sora wasn't sure if the whole issue with Neku, Shiki, and Joshua was just a weird coincidence, but it was really strange either way. On the other hand, the math guy who was one of Neku's enemies didn't bear a close resemblance to any of the Organization members. He had silver hair, but he didn't look very much like Xemnas, so that was where the pattern seemed to stop.

It was a shame that Shiki wasn't around anymore, since Sora would have been curious to see Kairi interact with her. Still, it looked like they were making Riku feel left out by talking about people who he didn't know, and so Sora moved on to focus on their plans for the coming night.

Once again, it looked like his two friends were leaving it up to him. Sora wasn't sure why that was, but it probably had to do with the fact that he'd been stuck in this place for so much longer. "Well, we could try to head down to the basement again, but..." He glanced over to Riku. "I don't know if you wanted to keep an eye on Naminé instead?"

"I'd be okay with trying the basement," she decided, tapping her fingers against the table gently. Despite having Rukia's sword for quite some time, she was still yet to use it. Of course, she had a feeling if she wandered around with Sora and Riku at her side, they would most likely take care of things quickly, but still. She at least wanted to try! "It might be an interesting place to look. Or perhaps we could try to get over the wall?"

Honestly, she was okay with anything. At least they would have a plan.

"Sora and I will be okay if you want to see Naminé," Kairi turned towards Riku with a smile. "It's good to know that she has you to protect her."

Riku thought about it, and realized it would be bad if he made plans to head out with Naminé to where she wanted to go, and then she didn't end up coming around again. He remembered that she needed to get things from the area they were headed toward, and it would be likely for her to want to head there again. Still, she might want to wait and see until the random moving around stopped. There was a chance that tonight would be the same way.

In fact, the chances of that were something he wanted to think about and see.

"I'll try and write her again," he decided. "If she doesn't reply, then I won't go looking for her. She might be asleep." Some patients, he realized, spent the day asleep, so there was a chance that Naminé might be in the same boat. "And besides, we can't plan to go anywhere without knowing if tonight's gonna be the same. We can try and head places, but we can't know for sure."

At least they were getting some kind of plan together. That made Sora feel a little better, since last night had been pretty confusing, as he hadn't known what either of his friends had been up to. Even if Riku did decide to go along to help Naminé, Sora wouldn't mind, since at least he'd know what his friend was doing with his night.

But Riku had a point about the coming nightshift. Sora frowned down at his plate of food; he hadn't even considered that things might still be out of sorts with the doors tonight.

"Stuff like that usually only lasts one night," he commented, since that did seem to be the pattern. The zombies had only been there one night, and he'd only thought he was Matt for a day, so maybe it would be the same with the doors. "Either way, we should be able to meet by the stairs and then figure it out from there, 'cause I was able to go up them without anything weird happening."

It meant they had a plan, at least. Seeing how there hadn't been much news from Arts and Crafts, Sora didn't feel too guilty about teaming up with Kairi and Riku instead.

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Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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