Day 53: Sun Room, Morning

[scarefaux]

With breakfast finished and a new acquaintance made, the Scarecrow's mind turned to his other friends. The disappearance of Depth Charge's friend had brought back memories of how he'd felt when Kaiji went missing: helpless, useless, as though he should have and could have done something more to find him. If only he had his brain, then maybe he

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[windsome]

The longer she sat, the more she realized being able to calm her line of thinking wasn't happening; Yukari hugged the pillow close, like a lost child clinging desperately to their security blanket. It was like some shield between her and everyone else who were quickly gathering into the large room, and while she simply wanted things to start making sense (or at least, start making progress on leaving), she was reluctant to have anyone else approach her. What if someone else came up and started talking to her like they've known her all this time, just like yesterday and today, speaking of all sorts of stuff that should have been impossible for a stranger to know?

Yukari had learned to open up a little, and she hadn't been as distrustful toward the world as she used to be, but that didn't mean she was ready for just anyone to know about certain aspects of her life.

The pillow didn't hide her by any (not that she was trying very hard; she was seventeen, she didn't fall back on dumb things like that), but that didn't keep Yukari from glancing around, almost as if she were keeping an eye on certain people-- mostly, those who were nearby. Everyone seemed to be minding their own business though, again, as if this were some normal routine. Because they were here longer so they understood this place a whole lot more than she did, right? Sigh. It sure seemed that way, and somehow, that bugged her.

One notable thing, though, was that a lot of others had been gathering around a certain, large spot on the wall. Lots of papers were tacked on, with even more writing... That was kind of interesting. Maybe it was worth checking out?

She debated on this action some more in her head, but as she turned her head elsewhere, something else entirely caught her attention, walking by not too far away.

Familiarity struck-- Yukari found this odd because nothing in this place so far had any semblance of it, so for it to happen at all... But she knew that posture, the way he slouched a little while walking as casually as any person possibly could. And she knew that head of hair, dark navy and just long enough to cover nearly his entire face. It was the only two distinctions she could go by, considering everyone else were wearing the same, dull grey uniform, but those were enough to go by.

... Wait, go by what? Was she insane? Just because it looked similar (and way too much) didn't mean it was.

Besides, it was impossible. That person was gone.

Nonetheless... Yukari set the pillow aside, and soon enough she was up on her feet. This was-- it was only to make sure, only to alleviate that what if?, because she thought she got over that already, and it was stupid and useless to keep clinging on to that thought.

Yukari made her way over to catch up behind him. "Excuse me," she called out, tugging lightly at his sleeve from behind.

[foolishmessiah]

Many of the sofas were already taken by other patients, so Minato had to walk further away from where he entered to get to one of the empty seats. Before he reached it, he found his shirt being tugged on from behind and to his right -- the side that was harder to see with his hair parted the way it was. He had to turn around completely to look at who was behind him, blinking slowly at the familiar face.

"Yukari."

If surprise made its way into his expression, it didn't last long; after Mitsuru's reappearance, he couldn't say he was too shocked to see Yukari after she had been 'released.' But it hadn't been long at all, had it? ...No, this wasn't the time to wonder about how the institute did things. It didn't really matter right now.

Minato instead focused on Yukari and the hesitation he heard in her voice. Slipping his hands from his sweatpants pockets, he quietly touched her elbow so he could guide her towards a sofa. The nurses might come over if they continued standing in the middle of the room, and it looked like they may have a lot to talk about.

"...Let's go sit down."

[windsome]

She had this scenario perfectly planned out: as soon as the person she approached turned around, she'd take a glance at his face, possibly feign surprise, and apologize for mistaking them for someone else. An easy solution to get out of what could have been an embarrassing situation, and besides, it could have been a mistake anyone could have made, right? They're all wearing the same clothes, after all, so at a glance it could have been difficult to tell people apart.

And then, that little what if? would have been eased, because god this was stupid and what the heck was she doing, getting up just to confirm it? Especially in a place like this, somewhere she didn't even know the location of! The dead didn't come back. She thought back on Kaito, who had made a claim to the otherwise, but she still wasn't believing it. Yukari had done enough clinging the past before, wishing for this person and that person to return, but she gave that up already and didn't plan on going back.

It didn't go quite as planned.

The person turned, facing her, and Yukari didn't have the time to go through her preplanned routine before freezing on the spot.

That face-- it was--

Then, he said her name, and that's all it took for her to seize up.

Yukari didn't respond right away; she could feel her elbow being brushed up against along with the suggestion to go find a place to sit again, but it was as if it had went into one ear and right back out the other. No way, no way, no way, the words were constantly repeated in her mind, because that was about the best and most coherent line of thought she could come up with.

"No way," she murmured aloud for good measure. "Minato-- you're..."

Alive.

She couldn't bring herself to say that much aloud.

[foolishmessiah]

Minato had assumed, by Yukari's expression, that she had forgotten the institute in the same way as Mitsuru. He wasn't one for explanations, leaving those tasks more to the senior SEES if he could get away with it, but he could at least mention a few things like he had done for a few other newcomers.

But something about the way Yukari reacted to him saying her name gave him pause. It wasn't the same wary surprise that she had used when he had first arrived at the institute. It wasn't relief at seeing a familiar face, or simple confusion at him being there. He wasn't sure how to feel about that, but it didn't matter; he could still pick up with an assumption from where Yukari had trailed off.

"Yeah." He was here, she was here, and it was a weird situation to say the least. That kind of answer wasn't going to appease her though, so he asked a question while keeping his hand on her elbow. "Are you okay?"

It was a stupid question, sure -- who would be okay in this place? But he needed to hear more out of her.

[windsome]

Following that, there was yet another long, empty pause as Yukari attempted to figure out what the proper response to his question would be. Was she okay? She didn't even know anymore. Typically, she would be able to answer the simple question on a more or less positive note, but in an instant she had been overwrought with a sudden tight feeling in her chest, thanks to all the dozens of conflicting emotions and the many levels of shock that came with this extremely unexpected meeting...

She was all right, but her mind was saying no, no she wasn't.

"I..."

Yukari trailed off, swallowing. She still didn't know how to respond.

But she did move, finally, pulling her arm away from his hand so she could tentatively grab at it with her own-- because she had to make sure this was real by feeling it for herself, and when she did, only a simple thought came to mind-- Minato's hand felt warm. Unlike last time, there was life to it.

Over the past month, she had wished so hard for that thought to cross her mind and it be true, but when it finally did, Yukari had felt so much disbelief that it was hard to feel any sort of happiness. There was too much how, too much why here?

He asked if she were okay as though he didn't have a clue.

How was she supposed to explain why she felt so distraught?

"No," Yukari eventually replied, honestly; she could, at the very least, still be truthful to Minato. She tore her eyes away from his face as if the action was a huge challenge in itself, lowering them to the hand she gripped at. "No, I-- I need to go sit down."

[foolishmessiah]

His hand closed around Yukari's as he waited on her, while his face showed muted concern when she responded in the negative. Her hand was tense in his, with the same tentative energy coursing through it that showed in her voice and posture. Something had upset her pretty badly.

Had she arrived from a distressing time in their world? Shinjiro-senpai's death came to mind first, followed closely by the choice Ryoji had presented them on Moonlight Bridge. Maybe she had a really rough morning, if she had just arrived today.

Either way, he continued holding Yukari's hand as he led her towards the sofa. He would wait until she was seated before he sat, looking first at the Sun Room at large before focusing back on his friend. Somehow, he got the feeling that there was little he could say that would help her right now.

Fortunately, patience was something he had plenty of. "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere." Not unless they were dragged apart like he and Aigis had been yesterday. But there were no tears today yet.

Hopefully there would be no reason for them.

[windsome]

She hadn't expected that Minato would take the lead, but on the other hand, it was probably for the better as she tried to regain back her focus. So she let her feet move on their own, letting her hand hang in his; on a normal day Yukari wouldn't have dared to allow this in fear of the sort of implications everyone else around them would get, but at the moment, the thought never crossed her mind.

Once an open spot on the sofas had been reached, reluctantly she let go, pulling her hand back and looking back up at him in an apologetic manner; he shouldn't have done this for her, no matter what the situation was.

Yukari sat down gently, unlike before where she took a rather ungraceful fall into the cushions, placing closed fists upon her knees. Even as Minato sat beside her, her fingers fidgeted anxiously, and she stared down hard at them.

The silence couldn't last forever, but Yukari didn't have the faintest idea where to begin. It didn't feel right at all going on to explain why all of this was wrong.

But there was one question that came to mind-- a very simple one, but Yukari hoped that those two words managed to sum up more or less everything that crossed her mind the second he first turned to face her.

"Minato-- how?"

[foolishmessiah]

How?

Minato's hands twitched in his pockets as he considered Yukari's question. What could he really say, knowing what little he did about the institute, the Head Doctor, and their current circumstances? He had been here for a little over a week, accumulating supplies, meeting people, losing people, and witnessing the effects of the Head Doctor's games.

There was still no answer to how. Or why. Or even when and where, if one was skeptical about what they were told of the institute and Doyleton.

If that was what Yukari was talking about at all.

So as Minato looked back at her, he shrugged. "I don't know."

[windsome]

"You don't know?" she echoed dubiously, looking back up at him with a frown.

If she had thought about it some more, Yukari might have come to the realization that it was more likely that he didn't than did. She didn't, however, take the time to do that; rather than waiting for the expected outcome of an answer (the usual 'who knows?' she had gotten so far), she had been too stuck on that the answer given hadn't been the one she wanted.

Frustratingly, among other things, Yukari slouched over, forehead in hands, looking about as weary as she felt. "I don't get it," she began after yet another moment of silence, and she was starting to sound worn out, too. "What the hell is this place? It's confusing enough I wake up here with everyone telling me things that don't make any sense at all." To put it lightly; Yukari understood what she had been told, but that didn't mean she was able to wrap her mind around it. "But then, you--"

Yukari cut herself short, but only for a second, long enough to jerk her head upward again at him.

"You're not supposed to be alive. What's going on that I'm seeing you like this?"

Because he had to know, at the very least, something was wrong about this, right? There was no way he could be completely unaware of what she was talking about.

[foolishmessiah]

You're not supposed to be alive.

His eyes widened slightly at Yukari's words, his placid expression giving way for a confused frown. That-- that was news to him. Everything else Yukari had been struggling through faded as he focused on the bombshell she had just dropped.

He could have reacted with frantic disbelief, denying the idea immediately; it would have been understandable, and a quick way to work through any restless energy that he may have felt. He could have stared at his friend in askance, searching for some kind of an answer.

But when it came down to it, he didn't feel panicked, or curious, or even very surprised. He felt ... dazed.

There had always been the risk that something would happen to one of them--a risk that was realized by Shinjiro's death--and he found himself thinking more about death after Ryoji's revelations. He could build those rational thoughts up like a wall that his confusion had to climb over. Because, unlike a lot of other things, he couldn't just compartmentalize this as something he didn't care about.

Minato slumped on the sofa, silent as he tried to refocus. It was difficult. Surprisingly not as difficult as handling a decision to remember and fight against the end of the world, but...

Gray eyes averted back to Yukari's face, having slowly wandered away as he withdrew into his thoughts. His only answer to her questions was silence.

[windsome]

The silence, if anything, had only made this situation all the more unnerving.

His lack of response was unexpected, but then, she didn't know what kind of response she should have been expecting in the first place; an explanation, maybe, but on second thought was it too much to think one of those would have been given at all? Yukari surmised he'd say something-- anything-- after putting it bluntly (and not so tactfully), but when only silence followed, a heavy wave of dread washed over her as somewhere in her mind, she realized perhaps that was not the best way to go about this at all.

Minato had always been a calm and collected sort of guy, even in the worst of situations; if there was one person she knew who was always the voice of reason, it was him. So to see him not say anything at all and look at her like he did, barren of any distinguishable expression at all... Above everything else, it worried her. What was going through his head? She couldn't read him at all.

"Minato?" Yukari ventured cautiously into the heavy silence that suddenly fell between them, although she almost felt like she shouldn't have said anything more at all. Nonetheless, she still sounded desperate enough to make heads or tails of whatever was happening to pursue. "C, come on, you can tell me. Right?"

[foolishmessiah]

She didn't know that he didn't know. Even if she had, he couldn't blame her for saying things like that; Yukari was worried and obviously trying to make sense of the place she had been thrust into, and he was a familiar face in a sea of unfamiliar ones.

But to her, his familiar face was also a dead one.

What could he say to that? Should he say something to that?

Yukari wasn't the type to talk so flippantly about death, so it wasn't a matter of believing her. It wasn't a matter of accepting his own mortality, either; that was something he had been faced with years ago.

So Minato looked upward, towards the glass ceiling, for just a few seconds. When he returned his attention to Yukari, his expression was tiredly resolved.

"There's something about this place." What a vague answer. He had to search for a way to clarify what he had just said. "Chidori-san was here before, too. It doesn't make sense."

To say the least.