Day 51: Men's Showers [Second Shift]

[perfectrecord]

Bah. So much for yet another suggestion of von Karma's. Such priorities this Institute had. They would implement a foolish suggestion to introduce origami lessons and to offer sewing supplies to select patients, yet refused to allow them to cleanse themselves more often than twice a week -- and, of course, without any additional privacy? How

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[not_rly_fai]

Breakfast had gone more or less as expected with few possible exceptions. The bulletin in the Sun Room yielded little and as tempting as it was to ask outright about Marc, it would be relatively suspicious, wouldn't it? At the very least, it was something to think about.

He followed his nurse to showers, glad to find the place still fairly empty. It took a bit of fiddling to turn on the spray and adjust it to a good temperature before stepping into it. At least this week there were no open wounds, just a lot of scar tissue beginning to form. Not wearing the medical eyepatch for a while actually felt pretty good, and he scrubbed at the places it'd sat around his scalp, much like a cat without a collar.

There was the town or the areas surrounding it that they hadn't checked yet. The rebels wouldn't be hiding out in the same place they were trying to overthrow, would they? Maybe he should look into getting some maps of the areas near the institute.

[Yuki!]

[winged_moon]

That definitely had been Sakura he'd seen at breakfast, since she'd answered the post Yukito had left on the bulletin -- but how had she managed to sleep through an entire day without realizing it? She was still here and awake and apparently unharmed, but the previous warnings he'd read about how people who were about to disappear started to sleep a lot was enough to keep Yukito (and Yue, though he was still quiet today and wouldn't admit to it anyway) very concerned. Hopefully she wasn't about to leave here again; Yukito wouldn't mind if she returned home and safe, but after she'd been here as a visitor he suspected that the Institute would simply return her to that false life

[not_rly_fai]

How was it that the same people seemed to find him time and again in all the same places? At he should be thankful it was Yukito and not Yue, though he could hardly be one without the other near. It'd been a couple days since they'd spoken last but at least Yukito seemed to have put aside some of the things that had gone on recently

[winged_moon]

Though the smile and tone said everything was fine, neither could really be trusted when coming from Fai -- from what they'd seen, he would cheerfully greet any sort of situation no matter how he felt on the inside about it. That was one of the main frustrations Yue had with him, though the guardian was hardly one to talk; his coping mechanisms simply tended toward hostility rather than false cheer. Coming so soon after, well, all that Yukito hardly trusted it either, and he still couldn't help but feel some responsibility for what had happened simply because he'd been there and watching when it had

[not_rly_fai]

Satisfied that the other wasn't going to push for anything but shallow conversation, he relaxed slightly, rinsing the soap from his shoulders and back, stretching just a little as he did so. From what the radio had said, it sounded like there were problems with the languages all getting garbled up. The bulletin confirmed it, so it was fine to play along and pretend it'd happened to them as well, right?

But apparently it hadn't effected everyone. Yue and Yukito hadn't noticed anything amiss, along with anyone else they were with.

"Mm... it was like someone removed the automatic translator. Communicating across worlds isn't so easy without that," he offered. Experience had proven it before and usually whenever Mokona went missing, the group suffered for it. For a few hours in the first world they visited, then for months at a time in Shura and Shara. There were ways around it of course, but having Mokona around was easily the most convenient.

"All the people you were with last night, they were from the same world then, huh?"

[winged_moon]

"The automatic... oh. Oh, I suppose it wouldn't be." It wasn't anything that Yukito had considered before coming to this place, but it was a good thing there was one. After all, he'd met people here from all different and sometimes bizarre places, and yet they'd all seemed to speak perfect Japanese. If he recalled correctly Yue had spoken to someone about the language peculiarities here, but couldn't think of the exact details of the conversation at the moment

[not_rly_fai]

"Mm, well, I don't pretend to know how it works. But if they could turn it on and off so easily as they did last night, maybe that's how it is?" he tried, giving an easy shrug. Truth be told he knew plenty about it. Mokona might have the innate ability, but it certainly wasn't the only way of going about it.

But hearing about Sakura was something of a relief. Even if it wasn't his Sakura, it was good to know she was safe. Not locked away and being held ransom just to keep them on task. He had seen the bulletin notes, but it was reassuring to have Yukito confirm it

[winged_moon]

If it was so easy to turn on and off, and if Landel didn't want certain bits of information being spread around, then why was the translator active the rest of the time? Why would he want to make communication between his various captives so easy for them? It was the same question about the bulletin, but -- perhaps he was listening in on their conversations and wanted to make it easy for him to understand them as well? An interesting thought, perhaps, but likely he had a way to keep himself separate from whatever he did to the others here.

"I'm not sure why she slept so long, though." Both of them were concerned about her, though currently it was a more specific concern than the usual. Yukito glanced briefly at Fai, wondering if he should mention that they were worried about him as well, but decided it would probably only upset him again. "She says she feels fine, and she wasn't injured at all the other night. And I've heard that people who vanish often start to sleep a lot."

[not_rly_fai]

It felt good to wash out his hair after wearing the patch for a while and he scrubbed at it, occasionally glancing in Yukito's direction. Once again, he wished he could offer to watch over her, but he knew that was likely to put her in more danger than ever. He knew all too well that most patients who slept like that tended to vanish quickly after, in nearly every case he could recall. Though his own Sakura had vanished so suddenly... no warning at all. She'd been around for just a little more than a day at most

[winged_moon]

"Oh? Well... that's good to know." It actually did help a little, even. The other people Yukito knew who had since disappeared might or might not have started sleeping a lot; they were all people he didn't contact frequently, so he could have just missed them in passing during the days. Before Ken had been "released," though, he'd started to sleep almost all the time. Maybe it was a sign that whatever power the Institute had over the occupants was starting to take hold? That was an unpleasant thought.

Yukito shook it off and simply smiled at Fai with simple gratitude. "If you would we'd both appreciate it. Even if Yue-san wouldn't tell you that himself -- he worries about her quite a bit." He fell silent for a moment, both to consider his next words and to duck under the spray and rinse his hair, then glanced back at Fai with some of his usual cheer fading under Yue's influence. "We're worried about you, too, Fai-san. Your eye...."

[not_rly_fai]

His might be a special case, but he didn't want to give Yue or Yukito any reason to worry more. Perhaps her waking up was a good sign though. If the doctor had any plans to use her before he'd struck that deal, maybe, just maybe, he'd leave this Sakura alone too. Then again

[winged_moon]

Smile, lie, and dissemble though he might, it seemed clear that there was more to whatever had happened than Fai wanted to say. Would it do any good to pry more into the past? What had happened had happened, and now that the lie had been found out how could it help to continue focusing on it? Yukito sighed inwardly; he thought it should be left alone, instead of upsetting the man even more, but still didn't understand why Fai was so opposed to letting anyone worry about him. It was almost like

[not_rly_fai]

His words didn't seem to make Yukito look any less worried, but at least he wasn't getting upset with him. To say he was like Yue though? He was a little surprised that hadn't been enough to set off the guardian, but he'd had a hard time reading Yue since they'd first met

[winged_moon]

"Fai-san...." Yukito turned toward him again with a sudden smile and shook his head. "If you attract trouble, then I think you have even more need of someone to watch your back. I'm sure Yue-san feels the same way, too. Neither one of us wants to see you hurt