Day 19 - Breakfast

[repolarization]

As Ginji was ushered through the halls towards the cafeteria he felt a little dizzy. He felt like something was very, very wrong but he wasn't sure what. It wasn't just the fact that he had woken up in the middle of some strange place, or the fact that Ban was no where to be found. Something else was wrong. Something important. Something that he

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[red_dragon_mode]

(( Sorry. ^^'' Forgot something. ))

Junior was still trying to figure out what was going on when he found himself waking up in his room. Last he remembered, the hall had gotten a bit crowded and before that there was fighting and...Albedo. He was there, Junior had seen him. But he had also seen his brother die. He'd wanted to run after him, but his mind was still saying that it couldn't possibly be him, and that the heartbeat he'd felt was a memory. Not to mention running around alone without a weapon probably wasn't a good idea, considering what he'd been told.

But...he'd woken up. He wasn't sure if he'd really dreamt that or not. How could his twin be in this hell hole? It just didn't make sense.

Well, no surprise there, the redhead thought to himself. Since he'd woken up in this place, it had only served to confuse him and screw with his brain.

He was still thinking about the previous night (though he took the time to roll his eyes when the intercom blared again) when the nurse came in and started ushering him towards the cafeteria. Junior just gritted his teeth and wondered how well giving the nurse the finger when he went on into the cafeteria would go over while walking between her and the orderly. Well, if Albedo was there for breakfast, then he wasn't dreaming. If not, then all he could really do was hope that no one he knew showed up. This was definitely not something he'd want to wish on Gaignun or MOMO.

After getting his breakfast, which actually looked pretty damn tasty, he sat down at a table facing the doors. He had to know if it was just his imagination.

[kukai]

It was then that the doors to the cafeteria swung open, and a slim young nurse with an immensely irritating smile sauntered through the doorway, followed shortly by one rather disheveled-looking Gaignun Kukai. He stared blankly at the back of her head as they walked together, his deep green eyes narrowed, both contemplative and baffled. Several places on his arms were wrapped in a thick layer of gauze.

"--good to see a patient following instructions so nicely, Mr. Black!" the nurse chirped, chattering away at him in a painfully cheerful manner that Gaignun would've preferred to avoid, if he had had a choice in the matter. Her voice and intense brightness grated on his nerves and exacerbated his already paralyzing headache. Unfortunately, she didn't sound like she was going to stop; his silence seemed only to encourage her to speak for him. In fact, if he imagined, she could almost be having a conversation with herself. A particularly loud exclamation from the nurse sent a sharp barb of pain into his temple. He grimaced. Well, if she wouldn't stop, he would just pretend she had. Gaignun did his best to tune her out, and refocused on the events of the night before.

He remembered walking out of the room he had been occupying into a long hallway. He remembered walking along that hallway, cautiously, seeking doors and purposely avoiding others in case they were of an enemy force. He had walked quite a while, but he was sure he hadn't gotten far before something had confronted him-- something with teeth and claws and a horrible yowl...

Gaignun lifted his arms, looking over the many bandaged areas with wounds beneath that still faintly stung, even though they had quite obviously been treated. He did not remember being attacked. Then again, he didn't remember much of anything. He had struck out at the beast with every ounce of his mental strength, it had recoiled with a shriek, and after that... nothing at all...

A brief pause in his thoughts alerted him to the fact that his nurse had stopped talking. He glanced around curiously, not daring to hope. Upon his discovery, he almost breathed a sigh of relief. She had left him. Apparently he was where he needed to be. The room was obviously a cafeteria; the smell of food was thick in the air and several nurses were serving grey-clad individuals breakfast. Gaignun did not feel particularly like wondering what that meant this place was. In fact, he felt more like collapsing right there in the middle of the room, but that, unfortunately, was probably not an option.

Choosing to put off the reflection until later, Gaignun briefly considered getting a plate. Food meant energy, and he could certainly do with some of that. At length, though, he decided against it. Food may have meant energy, but he doubted he could keep it down long enough for it to do him any good, anyways. Gaignun shook his head slowly and began walking in any direction, casting his gaze straight ahead--

--and spotting a face so familiar and shocking that he very nearly jumped back.

"Jr.?"

[red_dragon_mode]

Junior had been scanning the people that were trickling in so intently for a head of white hair that he wrote the other familiar face off as just someone who looked like the black-haired variant. That is, until he heard the voice. With the exception of the lady he'd talked to when he first arrived and maybe that asshole with the goatee, most everyone else he'd had a conversation with had been a teenager, and he didn't remember any of their voices being that deep. Or that familiar, for that matter.

"Gaignun?" he asked, turning to face the other. He allowed his jaw to hang open for a second before repeating himself. "Gaignun? How the hell--" he broke off, shaking his head. Irony was a cruel thing. "I guess Fifth Jerusalem is about as safe as the Durandal, huh?" he finally said, giving the man a look that was a mix between a smile and a grimace and shrugging. "You look like crap. What happened?"

He felt a little twinge of guilt that he had believed that Albedo might be here, but had just written it off as impossible that Gaignun would be here too; but Junior tried to justify it by telling himself that he didn't want Gaignun to be here for his own safety. Besides, someone had to be around to run the Foundation, and the redhead figured Gaignun was better at handling that by himself.

[kukai]

Gaignun knew that he should be feeling some measure of regret that Jr. was trapped in this place alongside him, but after the initial shock faded, all he could find was relief at sighting a familiar face. Familiarity was something he took great comfort in, and it showed in his face, which had taken on a slightly less grim expression the moment he had spotted his redheaded companion.

"I don't remember," he answered absently, but honestly, focusing on Jr. the best he could. "I woke up in a white room last night and wandered into the hallway in an effort to gather more information about my location. It was there that I encountered some sort of catlike creature. I can only assume..." Gaignun trailed off, seeming to lose himself in thought for a moment. His eyes drifted away to a nearby wall, and it almost seemed as though he wasn't going to continue. Then he sighed faintly, closing his eyes and shaking his head once. "Never mind. I'll be fine." He didn't sound entirely sure of himself, even in his own head, but it would have to do. He then promptly changed the subject to Jr. himself; it was a wonderful diversionary tactic, in any situation, especially where his brother ws concerned. "What about you? Are you all right?"

[red_dragon_mode]

"You were one of the ones that the bastard over the intercom announced last night?" Damn! If he'd known, maybe he could have found Gaignun and been able to help him out a bit. At least he was here now, and somewhat safe. He gave his brother a disbelieving look when he said he'd be fine, but he could always push the issue later.

"I'm fine. I woke up here a couple days ago. Didn't go anywhere the first night, but I found someone I met last night and we decided to go look around. Didn't get very far, but I..." he hesitated for a moment, looking around again. "Gaignun...I think Albedo's here. I spotted him last night, but I didn't believe it. He--" Junior shook his head. "Nevermind. I'm sure he'll turn up soon if he's really here; he always does."

The redhead turned back to the food he'd gotten and started eating. He speared a piece of sausage with his fork and brought it to his mouth before looking back over at Gaignun. "There's probably some things you should know about this place," he started as he bit into the sausage. "They call it a mental institution, but it seems to be a lot more like the Yuriev Institute, complete with some bastard jerking us around however he wants to. Night's a lot different than the day, apparently, and someone said that there are other things than just that cat roaming around. And I don't know how, but there's some people here who haven't even heard of the Federation. Far as I can tell, too, they're able to keep us from using our abilities."

[kukai]

"Albedo?" Gaignun's normally collected tone betrayed more than just a hint of surprise. "That's impossible. How could he...?"

But as he continued to listen to Jr.'s warnings, he wondered if it really was. Cat monsters, things worse than cat monsters, ability suppression, being kidnapped (so to speak) by a mental institution... those seemed fairly unlikely, too, and yet there they were. Who was to say that Albedo couldn't be trapped in this place as well, laws of the universe be damned?

Gaignun sighed inwardly, chiding himself for such thoughts. Of course Albedo couldn't be here. Gaignun himself had not seen, not heard, but felt him die. This was not the time to be questioning physics. He needed all the constants he could get, at least for then; doubting the few he had was not going to get him anywhere. And besides that, there were other things in Jr.'s short speech that deserved equal attention. The information about this strange building, for instance.

"We've been taken hostage by a facility meant exclusively to help people." He turned the words over once or twice in his mind, musing over the information therein, but no matter how he looked at it, it still didn't make sense. "Strange... and I've never heard of a mental hospital capturing its own patients."

A pause. Gaignun took that moment to take a seat next to Jr., thankful for the chance to rest, although the scent of food wafting from the redhead's plate made his stomach turn slightly, and the hum of conversation surrounding them was terribly distracting. He did his best to ignore them both, and continued his previous train of thought. "Of course, I've never heard of a mental hospital that allowed dangerous animals to wander the hallways, either."

He hoped they were animals, at any rate. He didn't care to think of the alternative.

"How did we get here?," he asked at great length. Gaignun did not like asking questions, if he could help it, but this one in particular was a rather pressing weight on his mind. He leaned against the back of his chair sideways, watching Jr. with narrowed, guarded eyes. "I doubt that both of us being here at once is a mere coincidence. Although... you would think that we would have a vague recollection of the attack at the very least, if there was an attack to recall."

[red_dragon_mode]

"I don't know how he could be here," Junior replied, a bit surprised that Gaignun reacted as he did. Guess he did know when it happened. At least I don't have to try and explain it to him. The redhead was comforted a bit by that knowledge, since he didn't really want to relive that moment anytime soon. "It sure seems impossible, at the very least." And he left it at that, hoping that the topic would only be brought up again if the white-haired variant decided to show himself.

"I don't know how we got here, and no one else I've talked to has any idea, either. But I mean, they're able to do things that we can't, so who's to say they didn't just warp us here or something?" He shrugged and ate a bit more of his breakfast before continuing. "I thought it might have been U-TIC when I first woke up here, but with the way the nurses are acting, I doubt that's it. Besides, the technology here isn't as advanced as it should be for them to be behind it."

There was a pause and Junior narrowed his eyes a bit. "Hey, what's with that 'capturing its own patients' thing? We don't belong here. Right?"

[kukai]

"Yes. I came to a similar conclusion last night," Gaignun replied in regards to U-TIC, gliding smoothly over Jr.'s inquiry with the faintest suggestion of a smirk. He hadn't meant the comment the way it had been taken, but it would've been a shame to miss the chance to push the redhead's buttons. "I believe mine had something more to do with the furnishings, though. I doubt that U-TIC's holding cells would be so... pleasant."

Dissatisfied with the answer he'd received but aware that he wasn't going to get a better one, Gaignun accepted the lack of knowledge graciously and wasted no time in dropping the subject, shifting in his chair to watch the other patients with mild interest. His headache, while fading, still didn't permit true concentration, but over the course of his life he'd learned quite well that any information could prove useful. Three things became readily apparent: there was no semblance of rhyme or reason to any of the patients; the cafeteria was just as bleak and sterile as everywhere else he'd seen in the hospital; and the nurses... Gaignun truly did not like those nurses. They reminded him of those weak, slimy businessmen he'd been forced to converse with back home; they smiled constantly and made every effort to appear friendly, but if you'd only turn your back for long enough...

Gaignun eyed them distastefully, deciding in that moment that he would be interacting with them as little as possible. He glanced sideways at his brother, offering him a grim half-smile. "Though, pleasant or not, I think I would almost prefer U-TIC's soldiers to the staff here. Some of the orderlies make Margulis seem like a pushover."

[red_dragon_mode]

"Yeah," Junior agreed, chuckling. "If it was U-TIC's soldiers, I really doubt that anyone would be trapped in this place for long, whether they have their powers or not. Besides...if it was U-TIC, I don't think that the pajamas they make us wear would look so bad on you. Or maybe they'd be more appropriate because it'd be more like prison. Gray sweats and a smiley face doesn't really suit you," the redhead said, pointing at the face on his brother's shirt and grinning. After a moment, though, he was serious again.

"I think that the power's more with those needles, though, and the orderlies are more for intimidation. Getting drugged and sitting there so out of it really doesn't seem like a good plan, so they try to get you to behave that way." Junior shrugged and he frowned a bit as he remembered how he'd gotten carried around on his first day. "They're pretty strong, though. I guess they'd have to be. But they can lift people pretty easily."

[kukai]

Gaignun blinked once, looking more surprised than he probably should've. It was somewhat silly of him, he knew, but it really hadn't occurred to him that he was wearing the same clothes as everyone else in the hospital. Jr.'s words took him rather off guard. He glanced down at the bright, beaming smiley face on his chest and frowned slightly, noting with some disapproval that the redhead's appraisal of his current clothing was quite accurate, both in the fact that he was wearing the uniform and in the fact that it did not suit him. Grey was fine and well, if not his first choice, but that yellow smiley...

He spent another moment or two frowning at his clothing as though somehow that would make it magically change form and color, or at least restore his dignity. Then Jr.'s last statement registered in his mind. Gaignun lifted his gaze, and his eyebrows with it.

"How would you know that?"

He tried to appear honestly interested, but he had the feeling he already knew. He could almost see the other pitching a screaming fit, slung over an orderly's shoulder and being carried out of the room spouting a long stream of protests and expletives. The thought alone was enough to make him smile. That'd be just like Jr...

[red_dragon_mode]

He couldn't help but chuckle slightly at Gaignun's reaction to the uniform. The man was in a suit so much that seeing him in anything casual - or a bit less than, as the case was - was quite the occasion. And really funny.

Then came the question. "Let's just say I wasn't the best of patients when I first got here," he replied, narrowing his eyes at his brother's smile. Of course Gaignun would have known; how could he not have? But he didn't have to think it was funny. But then, that probably worked both ways, what with the asylum's uniform looking funny to the redhead so long as it wasn't on him. Which it was, but he tried to ignore that.