Day 52: Sun Room
If she were honest, Yukari would have said she had no idea what a "sun room" was supposed to entail. She didn't ask, though, because by the time she had finished asking all the more important questions (which still weren't getting answered in any way that made sense), Yukari was getting rather fed up with all the nonsense her accompanying nurse was
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Because they'd not completely worn off, and because for the first time since as a child he'd hefted a refrigerator over his head, rage had not consumed him before any other emotion could get a toe in the door, what Shizuo felt, primarily, as the nurse walked him from the Cafeteria, was confusion. Confusion had never lasted long before annoyance with that lack of understanding propelled him into anger, and even now, his teeth grit. But, even annoyed, Shizuo did not seek anger. His resistance, instinct beaten down by his having given up on fighting it years and years ago, mixed with the drugs, kept him from twisting the woman's arm.
Instead and only, he pulled his away from her reach. Having heard that Mr. Takahaski had moved into the Game Room, the nurse had set a steady course for the Sun Room. Not that the routes differed. Inside, she deposited him in a chair in full sun, and moved away.
The stormy expression on Shizuo's face began to fade; his face tilted toward the sun. It was a pain, something was a pain, damned annoying, but the lingering medicine kept his just that side of peaceful, and the sun did the rest. It kept Shizuo from noticing the patch of salsa juice that had dried, red, on his arm and sleeve.
[Celty ;;]
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She's sat through the shift with food again, watching the tray with caution. Speaking was still something that was bothering her, so eating would have been even more of an experiment. The Dullahan hadn't remembered eating in her whole life, whereas she'd at least used her voice before. Not spoken through a mouth, but still used. And with her apprehension came the aftereffects. By the time she was taken back to the big room, she didn't feel that good though. Maybe she should have tested one of the shell things. Eating might not have been so bad in the long run. It had to be better than feeling like this though.
A place to sit would be good right then. She started looking once the nurse had left, trying to find a vacancy, but instead found herself stopping on yet another familiar face. One... that might have been a bit worse than Izaya's. Of course she preferred many to Izaya, vut even she knew that there were some people that were difficult to be around. Especially after that incident in the park with Saika's children. That had been, for lack of a better word, terrifying!
But looking now, she didn't think the man was in that kind of mood. With how she'd been last night she could only imagine how Shizuo would have responded to the place at first, but maybe he'd been there longer than she'd thought. He wasn't throwing things, so that was a good sign. Good enough to approach she wasn't sure, but it... might not hurt to try.
She fiddled with her notebook a bit to write something down before going over - making him wait on her writing would have bothered him, she decided - and with words down on a few pages she moved over to the side of the chair. Yes, it was him despite there being no shades or bartender outfit. She carefully gave a half wave in front of him to get his attention, and give a kind of greeting, then held out the notebook's first page for him.
"Shizuo?" was all it read.
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Shizuo. That was his name. Not Ivan Peace, which the staff kept calling him, which pissed him off, only he hadn't been able to reach that point again. Shizuo, so like Izaya, this person had to know him -- he did not remember shouting his name that morning at breakfast, protesting Izaya's damn nickname. But who was this guy?
No, maybe, this girl; the face looked familiar. That was pretty weird for Shizuo, too, almost recognizing a face without knowing the person. A vague memory stirred, something with pens and a hysterical girl. Superglue. Only, the expression on this woman's face was completely different. The next weird thing was the notebook. Why not say something? His head tilted as he considered both the writing, the familiar face, and that memory--Celty had been there, and insistent, absolutely determined to reach that girl. There was something else Celty had always been looking for, until recently.
Shizuo wasn't a sharp guy by any means. Connecting the dots and drawing conclusions; not his forte. Sometimes, instinct did the work for him. No longer much muted by the drugs, they kicked in, and understanding flashed in his eyes.
"Eh," he finally started, "you're... Celty?"
And the moment he said it, the pieces fit. Everything clicked, symmetry, it was right, he felt it to the marrow of his bones. Not that he'd ever be able to explain why. First, he began to smile, pleased to see someone he wanted to see (and curiously, not at all phased by her suddenly having a head)--
then, his lips twisted. His hands began to curl in his laps. "They got you, too? I'll kill 'em."
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Her thoughts were stopped quickly as Shizuo went from almost smiling to looking like he might clothesline the next staff member that moved. She started, then waved her hand hurriedly and turned her notebook to scribble down the fastest words about the first thought she could manage:
How did you get here?
she asked when the book turned back. Just telling him to calm down and not think about killing people didn't work (or hadn't worked to her knowledge), so a change of subject was best. Hopefully, it would work.
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At the moment, he wasn't thinking about that, about the past, about Shinra, about anything. Time had passed and the drugs had weakened and fury surged, the attack on Celty unforgivable (luckily, this thought did not strike: is that even her head?) -- until her hand and the new words did, handily, distract him.
Too bad the question was an annoying one. It was confusing, which meant it was annoying. Shizuo had not had much time or ability to think about it over the day, not that thinking about it helped. But, it had been a day of firsts, and it continued in that vein. Rather than fume at the question, Shizuo shrugged. He shrugged, moving a hand to his neck and scratching. His temper had been different all day, even factoring the drugs. If Shizuo were the type to think about it--
--but, he wasn't.
"I don't know," he confessed, frowning. "I woke up in a weird room. Went to sleep in Ikebukuro. This--"
Shizuo hesitated. The words he was about to say were unnatural, wrong, could not possibly exist in his vocabulary strung together in this way, in any way that made sense. But, through the drugs, the suspicion had remained, had latched onto the underside of his tongue, had stuck like a stench, one that wouldn't disperse until he acknowledged it.
Because it was Celty, he could: "...isn't Izaya, is it?"
"That bastard," he added, a half-hearted but necessary, instinctive afterthought. After saying something like that.
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