Day 59: Sun Room (4th Shift)
After an intercom broadcast like that, Kurogane felt somewhat better about the little information he'd gotten from Harrington the previous night. The man only sounded competent when he needed to but was an idiot otherwise. Unfortunately that was furthered proof of the General not employing the brightest of staff members, making another option for
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The end of the day found Aidou in the Sun Room, collapsed in a chair with his legs dangling over the arm rest. With night fast approaching, he should have been happier than he was, but in reality all he felt was a bit… overburdened. A little time to think, that was all he needed. Just a little.
Or a lot. But that would be admitting to a weakness on his part, and the noble wasn’t about to allow that. Great genius didn’t always mean a great tolerance for new and increasingly impossible phenomena, so he just needed… a few minutes of solitude to harden his stomach to the possibility--no, the fact--that the Institute was arbitrarily raising the dead or else making someone like him believe that they were raising the dead, or creating some kind of doppelgangers, or zombies, or--
The vampire folded his arms over his eyes and growled to himself, using his forearm to block out the diluted sunlight beaming down from the sun roof.
Why is this happening!?
He didn’t even have the time to get lost in a mental sinkhole. Sai’s reappearance didn’t explain Sasuke’s disappearance, and there were other annoying people Aidou had to keep an eye out for, not to mention the bulletin board, which was telling stories about all sorts of weirdness Aidou hadn’t even known about. Releasing a sigh, he shifted his arm, revealing a sliver of an eye from beneath his sleeve. He had purposely picked a corner to conceal himself, and with his head tipped back over the other arm rest, the room appeared to him upside down.
Just a little time to himself, and then he would reenter the nightmare of a rat race. Hopefully no catastrophes would occur between then and now, though knowing how the Institute worked, there probably would be, somewhere, in some way.
Downtime? There was no such thing.
As if on cue, his stomach let out a thunderous growl, reminding him just how low on energy he was getting. He rubbed it, and it let out a second, sad rumble like an unhappy child looking for console. "You don’t have to tell me," he said to it. "I know."
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Lunch had been a swift affair. Aigis had systematically gone through her food bite after bite, this time eating all she could despite her distaste for the meal. But she had endured, because that was what was expected of her. She could not allow something as silly as 'distaste' bring her to a state of weakness.
Making her way out into the Sun Room for the last shift, Aigis wandered around looking for a free seat that hadn't been snagged by the tent builders or another patient. She wasn't lucky in her search. However, she did find something else of interest. Or someone else, to be more correct.
Aigis approached from an angle that kept her out of Aidou's view, so she managed to hear the growling of his stomach and his words to himself without alerting him. Her pity took over again despite the acceleration of the thumping of her heart. He was hungry. That meant others would be in danger.
She moved to his side and sunk to her knees beside the chair so that if he just turned his head they would be speaking face to face. She kept her voice quiet, making it clear she didn't want to make a scene even if he felt inclined to accuse her of that. "Aidou-san." He may also have heard a little compassion in her voice, but that could easily be missed in the hushed tone.
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Making time to find blood was a priority again, but the idea of biting into someone who had been recently infected with that zombie virus, or who had taken some of the Institute’s drugs… Augh! It was too disgusting to think about. Aidou didn’t need any help from the Institute to start hallucinating that his food source was tainted--it already was.
If he couldn’t trust his senses to tell him truth from falsity, how was he to tell what kind of blood he had been eating up until now? Ugh, like he needed any more doubts about the questionable prison diet he was on…
He had been absently patting his belly when a tingle went up his neck, instincts warning him to something he couldn’t see. Now that he felt he could trust. Dropping his arm, he narrowed his eyes to search for the source of the disruption. He didn’t have to look far. That girl was creeping up on him… but although her posture was vulnerable, it didn’t scream contrition at him; she merely knelt down and addressed him without any acknowledgement of the night before. She could have at least shown a little disgrace!
Immediately, he pushed himself up on his hands, his eyes the vivid shade of blue the sky took on before a thunderstorm. “You’ve got some nerve seeking me out after what you’ve done!”
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"I did not so much as seek you out as I just happened upon you." Aigis spoke clearly, calmly. She read anger in his eyes, but she felt no building of fury within her. For the time being.
"You do not seem well, Aidou-san. Is it only hunger that has put you in this mood, or is something else troubling you?" She had an inkling who else it was troubling him, but she felt it was courteous to ask.
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“That’s happening a lot, isn’t it?” he replied flatly. The words had a caustic sting to them. “And it’s none of your concern! I’m not in a mood--I’m simply trying to decide how I should make you pay for trying to tip Sakura off about me. The deal was that you mind your own business and stay out of my way, not continue to bother me. You obviously don’t take me very seriously, coming over here to ask about my health.”
His last few words fairly dripped with sarcasm. Wanting to know what was troubling him, really. Who did she think she was talking to? Some feeble human? He was well enough to dole out some disciplinary action, and that should have been of more concern than what mood he was in or what he did with others of his own choosing at night, yet she still insisted on ignoring his warnings all the same.
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