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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The Replica's eyes snapped back up to Fai's single one, blinking from a brief spell of confusion as his brain immediately shifted gears and clanked down on the blond's reply.
"Wuh...?" Sechs slouched slightly, until his brain finally clicked. "Crap! That was you, huh?" he exclaimed, more annoyed with Fai than himself over such a withdrawal of information, "Why didn't you say so in the first place?!"
Crap. It looked like Sechs was going to be spending the rest of the shift with Fai then... He took in a gruff breath, allowing a rude sigh to exit through his nostrils. Time to get this done and over with then...
"It was a note that me and a bunch of other patients found up in the nurse's lounge," Sechs began to explain. "Somebody on the radio said it needed to be found before Landel got it. So when we did, that note ended up being a letter written by Landel himself to someone named Alec and a sheet with information about a woman named Jill..."
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Something that needed to be found before Landel got to it? He remembered hearing something on the radio about it last night, but...
Even if some of the newer patients didn't recognize the names, Yuuhi did. Alec was the other man from the radio, wasn't he? He'd died not long ago, but just long enough that the others wouldn't recognize it immediately. And Jill, of course, Jill was the woman from the radio. The one who'd taken over giving clues after Jack.
He kept his face carefully neutral and nodded, occasionally reaching up to stroke the kitten's fur. "A letter? Mmm..." but why wouldn't he want the patients to see a letter from him to Alec? Just what had been compromised? Jill's information... would she be the next target after Marc?
"What did it say? Do you know?"
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"It was Landel complaining about how someone named Jill Lowry was screwing up the security system in the institute," Sechs said, "Because of that, he was going on about upping the protection for the labs and hallways. Landel also mentioned that Jill was likely getting support from an outside group called 'Second World'."
The wound in Sechs' side suddenly flared up, he softly groaned through clenched teeth, doubling up slightly as he tried to ease the pain with his hand. Damn that stupid monkey thing!
Once the worst of the ache subsided, Sechs spoke again. "The next part of the note was this sheet with a photocopied picture of this woman, who apparently is supposed to be Jill. A lot of the info was blacked out though, we could only get some info about her being some graduate from computer sciences and stuff," he said. "That 'Second World' thing was mentioned again too, but there wasn't much details about it, other than that its some group of anarchists who are giving Landel a lot of trouble; which to me is always a good thing!" Sechs added with a smirk.
"Last but not least, there was another name that managed to not get censored out in that note," Sechs said, barely able to repress his pride from showing up in his face. Just wait 'till Fai got a load of this! "Apparently the name Jill was just an alias, and that she may actually be Lydia Thayer, the Head nurse!"
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Nurse Lydia was Jill? Had he heard the man right? Even Yuuhi's practiced smile slipped for a moment, his eye widening, brows raised. He'd expected some sort of news, but this? This really was big.
Did Landel know? He couldn't if what Sechs was saying was true. She was acting as a double agent then? Or could the note have been meant to be discovered...
"Right," he said quietly at first. It was a good thing... wasn't it? For the other patients here at least, it was a very good thing. It meant someone was close, someone who could help them escape, but...
"Right!" he said again, this time with a smile and a bit more enthusiasm. "That's great! That's really something!" How many people knew already? How many had been in Sechs' group? How obvious would it be now if he betrayed the man's confidence?
Lost in his own thoughts for a moment, he almost missed the way Sechs winced as he moved, not for the first time since sitting. "Are you alright?"
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And yet... There was something different from the usual cheerfulness that played inside Fai's uncovered eye caught Sechs' attention. Something about the way his single blue eye seemed to dart in rapid thought, a distant calculating look that was uncharacteristic for someone like Fai, at least from Sechs' impression of him so far. But that unnerving glint in the blond's eye was gone just as quickly as it had flashed by. Did that air-headed pest know more than he had let on? Or maybe Fai was just scrambling to catch up with the new information?
It all happened too quickly for the Replica to figure out right then. Sechs decided not to pursue his observation, as Fai's concern was a big enough distraction to throw him completely off his thoughts.
"Yeah, yeah! I'm fine!" Sechs grumpily answered, moving away slightly from any touchy-feely hands that may come his way, "Just busted a couple of ribs from a fight last night, which I happened to win by the way! You don't have to check me either, Kibitoshin already did that..."
Giving his ribs another tender rub, Sechs' eyes locked onto the eye-patch beneath Fai's flowing hair. "Speaking of which..." Sechs said, cocking his head towards the black patch, "Your eye still healing from getting hit by that baseball or what?"
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But it sounded like that was all there was to it, even if Sechs had paid a pretty heavy price for the information. It wasn't that he didn't feel guilty about passing it along, the it didn't give him a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, but there were greater things at stake.
He gave a few light-hearted claps as praise, when he heard about Sechs' exploits, "Hyuu! Hyuu! I never doubted you for a moment. I'm sure you were amazing Sechsy!"
The other comments were harder to ignore. Sechs wasn't the only one he'd lied to about his new eyepatch and given how quickly people here healed from their injuries, it would get harder to hide the fact that the injury was much more serious than he'd originally let on. Did he continue the lie? Or give the other some small piece of the truth, in exchange for the information he'd provided. Friends would do that, friends who trusted one another...
He let out a quiet sigh, smile fading slightly, even if it never left his lips entirely. Yuuhi untied the patch, his single blue eye glancing away as the other became visible. Where his eye used to be, there was now just an empty socket, the tender tissue around it having healed over more or less, but it didn't make the injury any less startling. Once he was sure Sechs had gotten a decent look at it, he replaced the patch with a shrug, "I guess it was a little worse than I thought."
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"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Sechs grumbled, waving nonchalantly at Fai's praise, (although a hint of a proud smirk briefly emerged in the corner of his lips), "I showed that monster son of a bitch not to screw with me!"
Fai's answer (or lack thereof) at first sent one of Sechs' eyebrows perking up slightly; the faint smile that barely survived on the tips of Fai's lips seemed more foreboding than friendly. Sechs watched silently, the skin on his neck tingling with caution, as Fai began to slowly unravel the eye patch before him. The Replica tilted his head. Just how bad was this injury? Didn't people mysteriously heal faster here? Yet once the eye patch was stripped off the blond's fair face, the grumpy curve in Sechs' lips immediately gave way to a slack-jawed expression of surprise.
"Wah...?" Sechs stammered, blinking at the empty socket that marred Fai's face like a crater on a once pristine planet's surface. As Fai covered the injury, Sechs' shock turned into indignation. Had Fai lied to him about his injury? "Baseball my ass!" he growled, "What happened to ya, man? Did some monster do that?"
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It was almost cute to see how easily a compliment could boost the other man's ego. Of course, the atmosphere immediately changed as soon as he revealed the injury. He'd expected surprise, even anger, so he didn't flinch as Sechs growled at him.
"It's nothing really! I hardly even remember it," he smiled, shrugging his shoulders as if he were just explaining how he'd skinned his knee or gotten a new boo-boo on his elbow. It wasn't a complete lie. Waking up after his match with Yue in the coliseum, still bleeding and broken, stuck in that metal drawer with his eye suddenly missing and no idea how he'd been revived or why...
"Don't even worry about it!"
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