Day 43: Sun Room

[arc_wrench]

Why does this place always have to spoil my fun? was the first thing HK thought when he realized he was back in his cell in the Institute. Oh well. This meant his nurse would be coming soon to lead him off to whatever boring place he was supposed to go to now

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[thatdamnedninja]

Zombies with familiar faces -- or where they even zombies at all now? Yuffie couldn't tell, didn't have time to check; all she could do was keep on living, keep on killing them. Or may that was -- She looked around, found herself in the Sun Room, shuriken in hand, moogle cloak -- Being used all over again, but she couldn't stop; it was them who had to, had to turn around and go back. The snap of bones was drumming out a symphony in the back of her mind, trickling through her like blood -- The smell and sight of explosions now, the rush of air as she dropped into battle; it was almost desperate, this plan, but they had to punch through, had to win, they just had to -- Mako, she'd never get used to the smell of it, but Weiss was right there and now was their chance, her and Vince's -- No, too late, there was the darkness; it caught her, and she hung helpless until

[thatdamnedninja]

She gave Plucky the slip as soon as they'd reached the Sun Room, and immediately made a beeline for the bulletin. It looked like it was gonna be a busy day already; the board was saturated with concerned notes, and peppered with other tidbits of information. She scanned through it all, tacking up her own message and a reply here and there. There… that'd have to do for now. And if people didn't reply, she'd just have to follow through on her promise-threat to hunt 'em down.

Shaking her head, Yuffie moved a few feet to the left so that she could sit with her back comfortably against the wall. She brought her knees up to her chest, rested her journal on them, and started translating her notes from Wutaian to something that Lelouch'd be able to understand. Short of jumping up onto a table and belting out a drinking song she'd learned from Cid, work was the only distraction she could think of.

[Closed to Lulu.]

[thatdamnedninja]

Translating this crap was too easy.

That's what it was -- crap. If she'd tried to get by handing this sort of thing to Reeve… Ugh, he'd have given her a look, she just knew it. She'd had all this time, and she'd barely been able to scratch the surface! Everything she knew, everything she'd been able to scrape together so far, asked way more questions than it answered! Yuffie scratched her cheek, brushed the pen through her bangs, tapped her feet in an off-beat rhythm. Sighed. And then scowled at the piece of paper, as if to say: I want very badly to dip you in three kinds of acid, follow up with petrol, and then light you on fire. With a bomb.

And then I'll -- Wait, is that Lelouch?

Yuffie blinked, observing him silently as he shambled over to his girlfriend, the bulletin board. He didn't look too good. Not injured, just. Kinda zombie like. Which, after a night like that, wasn't too nice a thought

[thatdamnedninja]

What… That was it? No annoying formalities, just a bit of half-hearted sarcasm? He hadn't even reacted to the little conversation she'd had with Suzaku! She had expected him to lose interest in her within a couple of (milli)seconds, but this -- this really took the cake. Either he really was that tired, or he really did have absolutely zero taste in conversational partners. Probably both, Yuffie figured. With a side order of general disdain. Lulu was just that type of guy.

Unfortunately for him, he was also good practice. If Yuffie was gonna stay afloat for the rest of the day, she was gonna need all the help she could get -- whether that 'help' was willing or not.

"I can see that you're bright, eager, and full of energy today," she replied, going back to her translation. Technically, it'd be more professional to keep the report entirely serious and free of subjective comments… Pfft! No way; those were staying. "Just as I expected. I've got something for you, by the way. You'd better appreciate it, or I'm calling in reinforcements."

[thatdamnedninja]

That was a little better. It looked more like he'd bitten into a weird grape than a sour lemon, so there was still some ways to go, but an improvement was an improvement. Yuffie's grin settled into a pleased little smirk as she hopped to her feet, as spry as she could be under the circumstances. Lelouch couldn't be planning to stand around for too long, which meant that he'd be slithering away any second now. Naturally, she wasn't going to let him escape so easily

[thatdamnedninja]

"What else did you expect?" Yuffie retorted. She didn't much care for gaining his approval, but the pride that she should feel for her work… it stung, damnit! "There's so little for me to go off, it's like trying to suck water off rocks. Desert rocks. If I was back home, I'd fire myself for writing that thing." The head of Intel and Espionage was rolling in her metaphorical grave.

She met his look and returned it with one of her own, unflinching and--for once--completely honest; yeah, she was disappointed in it. Kind of in herself, as well. And he could disapprove all he wanted; he knew exactly what the problem here was, and if he really was smart, he'd know that she had something else holding her back: without numbers, without some kind of team she could lead, trust, and count on to do their jobs, this project was gonna crawl at less than a snail's pace. She couldn't explore all of the outside territories on her own

[thatdamnedninja]

To criticism, perceived or otherwise? Yup, she was. Especially on days like this. Man, she couldn't wait to get her hands on one of those Frisbees again…! It'd be great to blow off some stream, without having to deal with killing stuff at the same time. Getting frustrated about her project was better than getting frustrated about those other things, but it was still. Frustrating. Obviously. Yuffie made a face at her map-sketch-doodle. "Point taken," she admitted. Hadn't she been talking to Edgeworth about this just yesterday? Seemed like a week ago.

And she'd have tacked on a smartass remark to save a bit of face, if Lelouch's next words hadn't elicited a snort--one that didn't quite cover the snicker behind it. "What if I want a legion of underlings to do my bidding?" She asked, sitting up a little so she could glance back over at the report. Three decimal places. No kidding

[thatdamnedninja]

"No way! I'll cheat and stea--borrow--somebody else's." Yuffie relaxed, a brief, cheeky grin flashing across her face. Was it just her, or had that faint smile been a real, genuine one?

Before she could decide one way or another, Fuzzbutt upped his campaign to recapture her wavering attention. Tickling and fussing the mewing ball of fur, Yuffie looked around for another one. Lelouch might've been playing it cool by staring at his pile of notes, but she hadn't forgotten the bulletin spam from -- how long ago had it been? Whatever; that wasn't important. No, the key thing here was

[thatdamnedninja]

The scowl washed straight over Yuffie's head. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him struggle with his furry friend. Fuzzbutt, who had clambered onto her head and was in the middle of giving himself a bath, paused to watch too. "There's nothing wrong with being athletic! And you're doing a hella lousy job of it," she pointed out easily. "You keep looking at all that stuff like you can't tell one word from the other, and I saw you at the bulletin." It was almost painful to watch. Almost, because she mostly just found it funny.

Oh, god. It was no use. Yuffie snickered-giggled, really-as the cat scaled Lelouch's pants and plopped itself down right where she'd left it before. "Looks like somebody agrees with me, too," she added, with a nod toward the cat. Lelouch could grumble all he wanted; it was pretty obvious that, for all his acting, he didn’t mind it nearly as much as he pretended to. "You think this is bad? I've got eleven of 'em back home."