Day 34: Intercom, Evening

[damned_intercom]

The intercom came on, and as it did, it seemed to carry a little more interference than usual for a daytime announcement, a little more static. While the patients might have thought for a moment that once again the elusive woman on the radio had hacked into the Head Doctor's system, the man himself soon proved that theory faulty as he laughed over

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[scintillatingly]

When the door opened, Sora stopped working on his mashed potatoes, quickly swallowing the food before half-turning in his seat to meet eyes with--

Someone who was definitely not Zuko.

This had happened to him before, of course. Zuko hadn't been his first roommate, and Sora was starting to wonder just how many he was going to go through. He frowned at the notion, though. It wasn't like he wanted them to disappear one after the other. It just happened, while he remained there time after time.

He tried to smooth out his features, not wanting to give his new roommate the wrong idea. "I guess so!" he said, quickly getting out of his seat and taking a few steps toward the other boy. "Come on in," he said with a gesture, having noticed how the stranger was sticking near the door. He seemed pretty nervous in general, actually, so he was probably new.

"My name's Sora," he added, wanting to take care of introductions before anything else. It was hard not to think about the implications of having a new roommate, but he didn't need to load all of that onto the other boy, either.

[mitase]

All right, the stranger didn't seem determined to intimidate him right away, so that was a relief. They were already off to a good start. It was much better than his first meeting with Ichigo, Hanatarou told himself firmly, and look at how well that had turned out.

"I'm Yamada Hanatarou," the healer replied, giving a sort of bow in a belated attempt to be polite. "I-it's, ah, nice to meet you. Sora." He edged farther into the room, glancing from the desk where his newly-acquired roommate had been sitting toward the other, with its untouched food tray. Presumably that was supposed to be his, then?

Hanatarou moved over and set his hand on the back of that chair, sneaking a glance at Sora to make sure he wasn't going to object before he tried to actually sit down. "I'm kind of. Um. New."

[scintillatingly]

"Yeah, I kinda figured," Sora responded as he headed back for his own seat. He hadn't gotten a chance to shake hands with Yamada, but he figured it wasn't really worth dwelling over. That was just a formality, after all.

"But it's nice to meet you, too, Yamada! I've been here for a while, so let me know if you've got any questions you still need answering." And Yamada might have a lot of them, depending on when he had woken up. It really didn't seem fair when new patients had to wake up during the fourth shift or something like that. Then again, waking up at night was even worse!

Realizing that he still had a good portion of his meal to finish, Sora kept eating. He hoped that Yamada had managed to make plans for the night already. Otherwise, he might be better off staying in the room. Sora would have offered to take him along, but a group of four usually didn't work out too well.

[mitase]

"Oh, no, you can just call me Hanatarou." There was no need to be so formal, not with him. He wasn't anyone important in the least! "And, I, um. Ran into some people I know, from back home, earlier." They'd at least explained some of what was going on, so he wouldn't have to impose on anyone else.

The healer offered a timidly friendly smile as he lowered himself into the chair, then turned his attention to the tray on the desk. He examined his dinner curiously, a little more cheerful now that he was relatively certain he'd be able to eat the entire thing this time. Sora seemed like a nice person, even though he was probably disappointed in his new roommate. He'd probably wanted someone interesting or important.

The food wasn't what the shinigami was used to, but it smelled nice enough, and when he started eating Hanatarou realized just how hungry he was after hardly eating anything all day. And there was ice cream, too, so he'd better eat quickly before it melted.

[scintillatingly]

"Oh, okay! Hanatarou. Sorry, I don't really know how some people's names work. I've only got one!" It definitely made it a lot simpler, though he could understand why some people would need two of them if they lived in a place with a large population. There were probably some people here at Landel's who shared a name with someone, in fact.

It was good to hear that Hanatarou had some friends here, and Sora sent his new roommate a quick, encouraging smile. "It's always good to have friends around in this place. Well, it's not good that they're here, but it would be kind of hard being stuck here without anyone that you knew from home around, I think." It had been like that for Sora for a while, but now it seemed like there were almost too many familiar faces around, and some that he didn't particularly want to see.

"So, did you already make plans for tonight?" he asked, wanting to be sure that Hanatarou had something in mind, since wandering around aimlessly could only lead to trouble.

[mitase]

Some people didn't have anyone they knew here? Hanatarou paused in his eating as Sora mentioned that - he supposed it made sense, since nobody knew how they got there or why, but he hadn't considered it before. The healer frowned slightly as he considered the idea of him being here all by himself. It was not a pleasant thought.

(He took a moment to wonder if it would be better to be here by himself or be here with only Ichimaru Gin, shuddered, and quickly distracted himself by mentally reciting the steps of making shinten. La la la, not thinking about that.)

"Oh...yes!" Hanatarou recalled himself to the present with a slight shake of his head and smiled at Sora, a little less timidly this time. "Hitsugaya-taichou gave me an assignment for tonight."

[scintillatingly]

Something Sora had said had sent his roommate into some upsetting train of thought, and while he felt bad about it, that was sort of how things went around here. At least Hanatarou was quick to recover, and he came out with an interesting bit of information, at that.

"Hitsugaya?" Sora asked once he had finished with his bite of food. "So you're friends with him? Cool! I'm a member of the Arts and Crafts club, so I know him and Renji and... well, a lot of the others!" He probably hadn't met all the members, but he had gotten to know quite a few, so it was exciting to have someone who was included in that group as a roommate. Hopefully this meant they would get along!

Not that he had really wanted a new roommate, and he wasn't glad that Zuko was gone (hopefully just gone, and not the alternative), but Sora knew he had to make the best out of every situation.

[mitase]

"You...know them?" Hanatarou blinked a couple of times, both surprised and pleased. They already had mutual friends, then? Of course, this raised the question of just how long the other shinigami had been in this place - he was pretty sure he would've heard if any of them had gone missing, but they'd already formed this club and made allies and everything.

Not that he would say he was "friends" with the captain, no, so the healer was quick to correct that. "Hitsugaya-taichou is the captain of one of the other divisions back home, I...didn't really know him that well, personally." Fortunately, too, if he was always as cranky as he'd been earlier today.

"But you know Abarai-san and the other shinigami?" Hanatarou leaned forward a little, glancing around as though he somehow thought someone else might be listening to their conversation. "Can you, um, tell me...what do 'Arts and Crafts' have to do with anything?" It had puzzled him since the captain mentioned it earlier, but he hadn't exactly dared ask.

[scintillatingly]

"Haha, well... I don't know Hitsugaya all that well, either! Me and Renji are pretty good friends, though." Not that they had been seeing much of each other recently, and when Sora had seen Renji around, it hadn't looked like he was doing all that well. Maybe he would be able to track him down tomorrow during the field trip to check up on him. And maybe even get him to join in on that game of tag that was being organized!

But he was getting ahead of himself, wasn't he? "But yeah, I also kind of know Rukia, but not as well as Renji. And... hmm. I knew Ichigo, but he hasn't been here for a while now." He was pretty sure those were the only "shinigami" he had met, and therefore the only ones that Hanatarou was going to recognize. Though if he was going to be a part of Arts and Crafts, he would probably get to know people like Allen and Kairi pretty soon!

At the other boy's question about the name, Sora sent him a small smile. There did seem to be a lot of confusion about that, though it did make sense, considering how strange it sounded. "It's just a code word so that we can talk about it over the bulletin board without the nurses getting suspicious."

[mitase]

"Really?" Hanatarou decided he'd eaten enough of the real food for the moment, and besides, the ice cream was melting. He set down the fork and picked up spoon and ice cream bowl, starting in on the treat even as he considered Sora's response. "I haven't talked to Abarai-san yet, but he left me a message on the board to say hello.

"Rukia-san is very nice," he continued, thoughtfully licking a bit of chocolate off the spoon. "She even helped me out earlier." Not only had she not seemed entirely displeased to see him, she'd even braved Ichimaru-san to try to rescue him. Rukia-san always had been amazingly kind. "And I guess it's good Ichigo-san isn't here, but it would have been nice to see him again."

Hanatarou nodded slowly at Sora's explanation of the club name, feeling slightly relieved. "Oh. That does make sense. It just seemed. Um. Odd." And a little undignified, especially for a club run by Hitsugaya-taichou.

[scintillatingly]

"I'm sure that you'll get to meet up with all of them soon enough," Sora assured the other boy. Seeing that Hanatarou was moving on to the ice cream, Sora didn't see why he couldn't do that same. Even though it was melted a little, that didn't make it any less tasty!

"But yeah, Rukia seems really nice from the few times I've worked with her," he agreed. She had been a particular help during the night when Kairi had lost herself to the darkness. Sora didn't like thinking back on it, but it had been a relief to have someone else there, even if the whole thing had been rather private. As Kairi's roommate, he got the feeling that the two were close, so it wasn't too bad that she had been there. "She's roommates with a close friend of mine," he added, now that he had thought of it.

Sora laughed at Hanatarou's reaction to the name, but it was in a light-hearted way. "Yeah, it is kind of strange, but it works! I dunno, I'm pretty used to it since I've been calling it that for a while."

[mitase]

Hanatarou gave a firm nod of agreement at Sora's description of Rukia. "She is! She really is. I always thought she'd be scary, being a noble and all, but she was really kind to me." He waved his spoon a little, as though in emphasis of the point, then paused briefly to wipe up the ensuing splatter of ice cream with a napkin.

The minor mess was tidied up with the ease of long practice as Hanatarou continued. "That's why I helped Ichigo-san, because I wanted to help her." Pause. "W-well, after the whole thing with the sword and the being taken hostage, but, um." He'd just needed a push to get going, really.

When Sora laughed the shinigami ducked his head a little, mildly abashed. "The clubs all seem to have such strange names. I, ah, didn't want to ask someone who'd be offended." Fortunately, it appeared that he'd guessed right when it came to his roommate - he seemed to understand, even if it amused him. "How long have you been here?"

[scintillatingly]

So Rukia was a noble? Sora hadn't expected that, but he wasn't too overwhelmed by it. Having met his share of princesses, he was used to interacting with people like that. They were all regular people when it came down to it, and he imagined it was the same with Rukia.

Though then Hanatarou started getting into details about his past with the other shinigami, and Sora wasn't entirely able to keep up. He worked on eating his ice cream as he tried to piece it all together, but the other boy was being a bit vague, or at least talking like Sora already knew what he was referring to. Even though he had met a few of the shinigami, they hadn't talked so much about their pasts.

Seeing how his roommate had asked him a question, though, he decided to leave all of that alone for now and focus on answering it. "It's been over three weeks now, actually," he admitted, feeling a little ashamed about it still. "I'm one of the people who's been around the longest, though, so that's not the norm or anything!" He wasn't sure if that made it any better, but he didn't want to get Hanatarou too worked up.

[mitase]

Hanatarou remained completely oblivious to how he was baffling his roommate; this was all stuff that everyone in Soul Society was all too familiar with, and he hadn't even stopped to think that someone from outside wouldn't know about it. Especially not someone who was friends with Abarai-san and Rukia-san.

The answer to his question, though, did surprise the shinigami. Hanatarou froze in place for a second with one hand poised over his tray, then blinked and remembered to let go of the crumpled napkin he was holding. "Three weeks? Here?" His voice squeaked just a little as dismay flooded over his expression. People had been here for weeks and not just days?

"B-but...there's a captain and a couple of vice-captains and Ichigo-san was here and this place is still standing after all that time?" All right, so maybe they were having the same problems with their powers that he was, but still, they weren't just little 4th Division healers. How was this even possible? He'd thought it had been maybe a couple of days or so, maybe they'd just run into a little bit of difficulty. But this....

[scintillatingly]

Everyone always had a hard time accepting such a long amount of time, and Sora had to admit that it had felt like ages to him at this point. He never stuck around in one place for this long - not since he had left the Islands, anyway. Well, he had been encased in a weird pod and asleep for about a year, but he hadn't been aware of all that.

At Hanatarou's disbelief, Sora turned toward him, looking a little more serious now. "Everyone's powers are really weakened. No one told you about that? It makes getting things done a whole lot harder." He wondered how quickly he would have been able to get out of this place if he'd had all his abilities, but it probably wasn't worth it to dwell on something like that.

He finished off his ice cream (and without getting a brain freeze, even!) and then set down the spoon, sitting back in his chair with a sigh. Hopefully there was still enough time left before nightshift to digest all of that.

[mitase]

"Well, um. No?" Nobody had said anything about it, though Hanatarou guessed there was something going on after he'd tried to do something earlier and ended up with a nosebleed. But - he frowned slightly, trying to remember. Hadn't he read things on the bulletin board about people being weaker somehow? Maybe that's what they were talking about.

Did that mean he wouldn't be able to heal anymore? Hanatarou looked down at his hands, starting to feel mildly distressed. "Um, h-how much are they weakened?" What good would he be to Hitsugaya-taichou if he couldn't heal? He certainly wouldn't be helpful in any kind of a fight, not when he often had a hard time walking across a level floor.