Day 52: Library (2nd shift)

[longlivetehking]

Scar possibly couldn't have been more thrilled at the prospect of being escorted to the library. He had visited this particular room plenty of times to know that it was entirely useless and uninteresting - like most daytime activities, for that matter. Still, the nurse seemed rather convinced he'd like one of those silly books filled with papers

Comments

[catstreetblues]

Sanae had gotten some useful information at breakfast, but since he'd never participated in any major battles, per se, it was only useful in a broad sense; it hardly applied to him. No one needed to tell him the name of that thing he'd saw last night for him to know to run like hell whenever he caught sight of Tonfa-san.

No, what really excited him was the prospect of some good old science fiction. He'd told Jiraiya this once before: he loved stories that challenged tradition and society. Science fiction was one of the few genres that actively celebrated that perspective, one of the "other".

As he browsed the shelves, almost ready to track down a nurse to point him in the right direction..."Hey! Look who it is. Long time no see!" Sanae walked up behind Alvin and gave him a pat on the back. "How's life, kid?"

[catstreetblues]

Sanae laughed. "Not yet I haven't!" Although...he sort of wanted to be. Without Joshua, this place was dead. Seriously. Not even a Minamimoto to spice things up--not that he was so desperate as to actually want Minamimoto to miraculously crawl out of whatever hole he'd been in for the past few days.

"And it's good you're lookin' on the bright side, kid. I'm sure some folks here are just totally jaded. So what've you been up to?" Oh, you know. Doing my emo teenager thing. Lamenting my unfortunate name.

[catstreetblues]

"Really." All of a sudden, Sanae's face grew serious--or at least, more serious than usual. "When did this happen?" If it had been recently...then maybe Minamimoto was still around. But then, why so quiet? He was technically (and only by the broadest of definitions) the Composer; unless he'd experienced some sort of radical personality transformation, he was supposed to be crowing that to anyone within hearing range and then some.

And the way Alvin was talking...did he not know what happened to Joshua? Well. Not that Sanae was going to talk about that.

[catstreetblues]

"Huh." That didn't tell him much, especially since somehow Minamimoto and Alvin had talked about art. Hadn't he commissioned the kid to go find out what the Reaper was plotting? And all Alvin had discovered was the art. Oh the disappointment...but then, there always had to be failures among the successes because otherwise, it wasn't life. He wouldn't chew the kid inside out.

"Ah..." Sanae looked away briefly, one hand smoothing down his hair. "No, he's not. Disappeared what, four, five days ago?" He smiled sheepishly. "I didn't make it that obvious, did I?"

[catstreetblues]

"Ohh..." Okay, so the kid just had good intuition. That was a relief: as much as he liked being able to read people, Sanae didn't care for the reverse one bit. "Yeah, I see what ya mean. Josh and I are like this" - he crossed his fingers - "well, not like in that way, but, ya know, pretty close. Anyway, yeah, not havin' him around's kinda killed things, so I know how you're feelin'."

Poor Alvin. All alone in the world and only a teenager. "But I guess in the end ya just gotta keep goin', for all those people. So stick with it, kid." Sanae reached over and patted Alvin on the back. "Stick with it."

[catstreetblues]

Sanae laughed. "What else am I supposed to tell ya? 'Give up completely'? Sometimes what we all need is good ol' injection of optimism, y'know?" It was funny he was acting this way, considering the state of everything, but the light mood was so infectious, especially for him. It just...wasn't in his nature to be a downer.

He tilted his head a little bit at the mention of the third floor. "Huh? Not really..." To be honest, Sanae had been really out of things lately. "Ya mean other than what we hear over the intercom?"