Day 57: Intercom, Evening

[damned_intercom]

Varying opinions aside about the new caretakers, the efficiency of the military was worthy of some admiration. The Great Escape ended with minutes to spare, and the staff wasted no time in dismantling the equipment in the Sun Room. Visitors were kindly informed that visiting hours were over while patients were ushered to their rooms

Comments

[roseoverture]

"Is it?" she wondered aloud, lacing her fingers behind her back as she wandered over to the dresser to get a better look at the dolls. "I guess so. I like it either way," she answered. If someone wanted to be that kind of girl, there wasn't really anything wrong with that. It just wasn't Utena's usual style. The flowers maybe were, but the dolls were a little feminine and kid-ish for her. Not that she wanted to take them down now that they were up; they were adorable, for sure. They just weren't something Utena would have thought to put out if she had been in charge of decorating.

She peered down at the dolls, admiring the delicate craftsmanship on the porcelain one and the homemade charm of the other. "Might as well just use 'Utena' if we're going to be roommates. It's good to meet you, Anise," she said with a casual shrug and a smile, reaching down and gently picking up the cat doll.

It took her a moment to realize why the doll looked familiar, but quickly enough, she spotted the cat on Anise's back again. "This is pretty cute. Did you make these?" she asked, gesturing first to the smaller doll, then back and forth between the small one and the larger one.

[gald_digger]

Anise nodded when Utena clarified for her. That name seemed easy enough to remember. "Nice to meet you too!" she cheerfully replied.

Her attention returned to her food and she took a few bites while Utena looked over her dolls. When the girl mentioned Tokunaga's cuteness, her smile quickly returned. "I made the one on the dresser in Arts and Crafts. And this..." She pulled Tokunaga off her back and held it up to show. "... is Tokunaga! Mama made it for me a long time ago. I don't go anywhere without it."

While this probably wasn't a good time to start thinking about her parents, since she'd just received that letter from them, Anise didn't want to start treating them like a taboo subject or anything. That would just make things harder on herself. It was probably best to think and talk about them how she normally would.

In any case, if Utena was the sort of person who could appreciate Tokunaga's cuteness, then she and Anise were going to get along really well. Opinions of Tokunaga were usually a good indication of how agreeable a person was going to be - at least, in Anise's mind.

[roseoverture]

Ah, so she had a name for it and everything! Utena smiled a little brighter as she moved closer to Anise and Tokunaga. This was the sort of thing that made it easier to settle into a new room and finish out the day back. These moments were what buoyed Utena's spirits, and reminded her that no matter how dark things got, there was always some kind of light to reach for. She knew that Himemiya would agree, wherever she was right now.

"Your mom had a lot of talent, then! It looks great!" she said, holding out a hand as a silent request to hold Tokunaga for a moment. "Did you get it back the way some people get their clothes back at night?"

[gald_digger]

Not a lot of people said nice things about Tokunaga, and even fewer complimented the artist behind the doll. The truth was that Tokunaga wasn't sewn with a lot of technical skill, and that showed - but it was sewn with a lot of love, and that was something Anise saw shining through whenever she looked at it. Anise's smile softened a little, and she passed Tokunaga over so Utena could hold it.

Utena's guess was technically right in a way, but Anise had a feeling she was referring to the way that people's outfits would suddenly appear in their closets. "Not exactly. I got it through special counseling." While she didn't look too broken up over the experience (it had been a long time ago, after all), she looked down at her plate as she mentioned it. It still wasn't that easy to admit she'd been brainwashed like that.

[roseoverture]

True, Tokunaga wasn't a great work of art, but it was cute with its big Cheshire Cat grin and button eyes, and Utena could indeed see the love that had been put into its construction. She held the doll up where she could see better, hefting it in her hands and feeling the stitches and the fabric. The only thing that stopped her after a few moments was the mention of-

"Special Counselling?" Utena blinked, looking back at Anise. This girl, not much older than her, had gotten Special Counselling? And Tokunaga had been a part of whatever had happened? She supposed that shouldn't surprise her; if Himemiya could get Special Counselling, then... No, Utena didn't want to think about that night again. The point was that she knew well enough not to judge people by their looks, especially not when it came to strength in a fight. She didn't even need to think back to Himemiya's suffering to know that.

"How long ago was that?" she asked, tone a little more sober, but still trying not to drag things down too much as she continued looking over the doll. "I had a friend once who- Eh? What's this?"

Utena felt something brush against her fingertips in the groove between Tokunaga's torso and another part of its body. It felt like the edges of paper. She withdrew her fingers, wondering if she had gone poking into something she wasn't supposed to.

[gald_digger]

"Um..." Anise had to think a moment, twirling her fork with a piece of meat speared on the end as she did. "I think it was about three weeks ago. I've been here a pretty long time." She grinned a little, but there wasn't much cheer in it this time. The things she'd been through over time were pretty taxing, even if she tried not to let it show most of the time.

That serious moment came to an abrupt stop when Utena seemed to find something unusual about Tokunaga. For a moment, Anise gave her a questioning stare, unsure of what she could have found... but then it clicked. The money she stuffed in there! She'd added more just recently, and the bills were probably really close to the surface of the seam.

"N-nothing!" she cried, snatching the doll back. Holding it close to her chest, she secretly stuck her finger in the gap between the stitches, finding the bills and pushing them in a little deeper. Before, she wouldn't have minded if someone found the money in there, but now that there were a few hundred dollars stashed inside Tokunaga, she was a bit wary about letting people in on it.

She realized her outburst might have made her seem unfriendly, though, so once that was settled, Anise started thinking of a way to change the subject. Looking around the room, she spotted the gruel on Utena's desk.

"Say, um... do you want the rest of my fries? I don't think I can eat this much," she offered, smiling in a way that she hoped wasn't too awkward. The steak on her plate was finished, but most of the fries were left. Since Anise wanted to get some things ready before the night shift, it seemed like a win-win situation if she shared with Utena. "I can split the cheesecake, too."

[roseoverture]

Though Utena had already suspected she had come across something private, she hadn't been expecting Anise to be so immediately...suspicious-looking. She boggled a little at that, watching her roommate hold the doll close to her chest and fiddle with it. What could Anise possibly have that she would be so protective of?

Thankfully, if there was one thing Utena was more interested in than satisfying her curiosity, it was the opportunity to eat real food. "A-ahh, sure! Thanks, that's really generous!" Utena answered with a slightly strained and confused smile, deciding to leave the issue be for the moment. "How did you get the real stuff, anyway?" Utena had sure that everyone was stuck with tasteless pink meal at this point, but she had seen at least a few people at brunch with real food. What was up with that?

Utena moved back over to her desk while letting Anise answer, deciding to get a look at the metal box next to her gruel. She hadn't noticed before, but her sword lay there too, tagged with a string of numbers that seemed vaguely familiar for some reason. "Now what's going on here?" she said to herself, unlatching the box and lifting the lid.

Strangely enough, the box contained everything else that ought to have been in her closet before. Was this just the way staff moved possessions when patients were assigned to new rooms? But Anise had a box too, and it didn't seem like she had been moved. New military thing, then?

"Kinda pointless to gather all this together only to give it right back..." she remarked to herself again, lifting her folded duelist jacket out of the box.

[gald_digger]

It was a little weird that Utena didn't already know about the privileges given by the military. She seemed to already have some experience with the institute, so it wasn't like she was a brand new patient... Maybe she just didn't listen to announcements? Anise wondered.

"I think it's a military rank thing," Anise replied as she cut the cheesecake in two halves with her fork. "People who've been here longer have higher ranks, so we get treated better." She placed one half of the cheesecake on her plate with the fries, then stood up with the plate in hand and brought it over to Utena's desk. It didn't look like much of a meal, but next to that pink mush, it probably looked really appetizing.

With that done, Anise returned to her desk and started on her portion of the cheesecake. She nodded vigorously at Utena's complaint before she swallowed her food and was able to respond. "Yeah! It's really annoying, having to dig through everything to find what I need every night." Especially since Anise had a lot of stuff, and her collection was growing every day.

While the girl normally tried to savor her desserts, she rushed through this one, taking large bites of the cake. Once she was done, she could start on her evening project.

[roseoverture]

"Huh..." Utena set the rest of her outfit on the desk as she listened to Anise. Military rank made sense, but she wasn't so sure about it being determined by length of time in the Institute. Plenty of good people disappeared for no good reason all the time, people like Juri, or Naoto, or Harley. Just because a patient had been around for a while, that didn't necessarily mean they were better than anyone else. Just that they had gotten lucky and been careful at night, pretty much.

Speaking of digging through things, Utena had to go digging for the items she wanted tonight, even with her clothes out of the way. "I can see why," she remarked in response to Anise. The items she wanted were small, slipped between the cracks of everything else. The first item was a box cutter - something sharp she could have on hand as a back-up weapon tonight. The second was the red-jewelled ring. Truth be told, she still wasn't even sure she wanted to bring it. However, a nagging feeling in her stomach told Utena that it would probably be better to have it on hand just in case. At the very least, she knew she would be keeping the thing in her pocket and not on her finger, if she could help it.

Once she had everything together, she turned back to Anise. "So I'm guessing that if you go missing for a while, they don't count that time toward your rank?" she asked, picking up the plate, which she quickly thanked Anise for. "It's been about three weeks since I got here too, but I've apparently been asleep for the last six days. I just woke up again last night."

[gald_digger]

While eating her cake, Anise watched Utena unpack her things, noticing the clothing she'd pulled out of the box. Those weren't military issue, were they? They had to be her clothes from home. She was kind of jealous, having never gotten her own cute clothes back, despite being at the institute for so long.

As soon as Anise finished eating, she pushed her tray aside, then got up and returned to her own possessions box. From it, she retrieved a box of granola bars, two bags of candy, and a box of chocolates. She also grabbed a spool of thread. Everything was brought over to her desk.

"Six days!?" she repeated, surprised when Utena mentioned the length of her stay. She'd been asleep for six whole days? Not released? Anise guessed it made sense, since she hadn't lost her memories, but... "I've heard of people sleeping through a day or two, but never that many!"

In any case, it was time to start on her project. She could talk while she worked on it.

From inside the floral-print drawstring bags she'd made in Arts and Crafts, she retrieved some small squares of tissue paper. She opened one of the bags of candy - one containing 'Gummy Bears' - and placed a small selection in the center of the tissue. Then, she wrapped it up and tied it with a piece of thread. She repeated the process two more times, then moved on to the next bag of candy.

[roseoverture]

She took her plate over to her bed and sat down with it in her lap. A french fry was popped into her mouth. It wasn't until that moment that Utena realized just how much she had already started missing food with flavour.

"I don't know, and that's the frustrating part!" Utena answered after Anise's outburst of surprise, her frustration with the day thankfully tempered by the taste of salt and fried potato in her mouth. "I'm pretty sure I was just asleep, but I'm totally blank. The staff weren't saying much today, either. I think they'd have said something if I was released and came back? That's just a guess, though."

She watched as Anise pulled materials and candy out of a bag, munching on her fries and cake all the while. "Oh that's nice of you. Who are those for?" she asked, wiping a bit of cheesecake off the side of her mouth.

[gald_digger]

"I guess I see what you mean... The military's even less helpful than the old staff, so it's hard to get any information from them." Anise had to sympathize with Utena. It had to be pretty disconcerting to lose six days and have no way of finding out why or how that even happened. "Well, if you need to know anything about the past few days, you can always ask me!" Anise couldn't do a lot to help, but she could do that much, at least.

When asked about her little project, Anise's smile returned. "These are for my friends! Some of them have been sick lately, and all they have to eat is gruel, so I thought I'd bring them some snacks." She brought the drawstring bags closer, and started stuffing the newly wrapped candies into each of them, along with some granola bars.

Anise suspected that a lot of people were skipping more meals than usual out of disgust at the new menu. She hoped that with her gifts, her friends would at least have something in their stomachs. If nothing else, it would cheer them up a little, she hoped.