Day 53: Lunch

[buryyourdemons]

There was little to be said of the daily business that went on. He allowed himself to be shuffled, mind embedded too deeply in things he shouldn't be dwelling on. The night was over, the shadows had vanished, and there was little more than bad memories to be left in their stead. This was logic, pure and simple, and should have been reassuring but

Comments

[not_rly_fai]

Lunch didn't leave him feeling much hungrier, but he was anxious to get out from under his nurse's radar. Yuuhi hurried through the line, picking up a few items without paying much attention; cheese pizza, one pepperoni, a glass of juice, and a side salad. It was a waste, but it would save him from being berated by his nurse and that was all that mattered at the moment.

He chose a table with few empty seats, plenty of visibility if he needed to duck away and dodge another confrontation, and this time, he promised himself, he wouldn't hesitate. He couldn't put any more of this on Yue.

Resting his head in his palm and his elbow on the table, he started pushing around some of the salad with his fork.

[Izaya?]

Sorry for the wait!

[predictator]

'They come in slices!' How very informative; it seemed as though the man on the intercom was more than a little distracted.

It wasn't long before the nurse came to escort Izaya back to the cafeteria, though he insisted on a few more moments to check the bulletin before he went. On the whole, the lunch offerings seemed boring, but he started taking one slice of each before the nurse stepped into to interfere when he about to take a fourth slice-something with a variety of meat-insisting he'd taken quite enough already. She added a salad and a glass of juice to his tray quickly, and then ushered him away from the line

No prob!

[not_rly_fai]

Thankfully, when someone finally did sit at his table, it was a complete and total stranger. He put his smile back in place as he looked up to greet the young man. Dark hair, close to his own age, if a handful of inches shorter. It was a welcome distraction from the last couple of shifts and especially after last night.

"Fai D. Flourite," he replied, an easy lilt to his voice, "but that's too much to remember. Just call me Fai if you like."

The way he spoke, almost curiously, to ask his name and the fact that Yuuhi had been here nearly a month were enough to tell him this man was relatively new. But it never hurt to ask.

"I don't think I've seen you around. Are you new?"

[predictator]

'Fai D. Flourite' was hardly too long to remember (though it would have been a mouthful to address him by), but he'd accept the suggestion to call him something shorter. He came across as friendly enough, and with that mention that he hadn't seen Izaya around (coupled with the question)... He might just be informative.

Izaya could hope, at least.

"Nice to meet you, Fai," he said, returning the other man's smile with one of his own. "You could say I'm new, yes. I arrived a day or two ago, but I'm still not entirely sure what's going on."

It wasn't completely true, but it wasn't exactly a lie, either. He couldn't say with much certainty whether the conclusions he'd come to from connecting various notes on the bulletin were correct, after all, nor had he been able to gather much information directly. Without a view of the bigger picture, he would take any scrap he could get to piece it together.

[not_rly_fai]

That was easy enough to understand. He'd been more than a little confused his first several days in this place and he was relatively used to bouncing from one world to the next. This one could easy throw even the most mentally and physically prepared for a loop.

"That's fairly normal I'd think," he nodded, "I've been here for around a month and I still have moment where I'm not entirely sure what's going on. But if there's any questions you might have, I can try to answer them."

He tilted his head a bit, glancing over his tablemate curiously. Izaya seemed nice enough. And if they could focus the conversation on this place rather than himself, it was all the better. He had plenty he could talk about with that subject alone.

"I hope you've been careful at night. It can be fairly dangerous," he added. He had several injuries to attest to that; a scar just above his collarbone, the medical patch over his left eye, and several more that had faded with time and the rapid healing that occurred in this place.

[predictator]

"Ah, it does look that way," Izaya agreed, giving a glance around the cafeteria. Fai had his own injuries-the patch over his eye was hard to ignore-but he certainly wasn't the only one. "I was brought here at night, actually, and ran into a wild animal outside..."

There were things he was more interested in than the dangers of dog attacks, however. Since Fai had been here for a while, maybe he could shed some light on things-even more so since he was willing.

"Ah, I remember hearing an odd broadcast on the radio that night, too. Something about rings and a woman named Jill?" he added, starting with one of the earliest questions he'd had about the place and its goings-on. "I don't know if it even means anything at all, but I'm afraid I haven't been able to make much sense of it on my own."

[not_rly_fai]

"Ouch, I imagine that was a pretty awful wake up call," he gave the other a sympathetic look. He'd been lucky enough to have been brought in the daytime, but arriving at night had to have been a lot more difficult. He'd run into his share of the wildlife here and wasn't really interested in a second try.

And of course, the first question the man had was in regards to the thing he wanted to talk about least of all. He paled slightly, but managed to maintain the smile without falter, even if he did turn away a little more often as he replied.

"Those broadcasts are... pretty frequent. The doctor has been making them for as long as I can remember being here. There's others too, but they seem to change every so often," he kept his answers vague. General information. After all, it wouldn't be fair and might even be downright suspicious to withhold something like that. "From what we can tell, they're the ones fighting the doctor. Before Jill there was a Jack. But I haven't heard his voice in a while. Jill was- is the one that

[predictator]

It hadn't been particularly awful, but Izaya was in no hurry to correct Fai; he could think what he liked. He might have ended up in trouble if Castiel hadn't been there to take the dog's attack, but as things stood... He'd come out of the situation unharmed, and it had simply been an interesting night.

Fai's information, on the other hand, wasn't as much as Izaya was hoping for. Given his track record in gathering pieces so far, however, it seemed like the barest, vaguest scraps were all he was going to be able to get from anyone, even someone who'd been there for more than a week or two. Still, it was a start; at least he knew a little more about the broadcasts now

[not_rly_fai]

Hard to tell if Izaya believed him or not, but at least the questions were getting progressively easier, even if he preferred not to think about some of the things that went on in the institute at night.

"Mm," he nodded, looking thoughtful for a moment. Far too many of his friends had fallen victim to the varied types of 'sleep studies' conducted in the institute. "It's different every other night, but a few people will always be taken away. Some are brainwashed and made to fight other patients. Mostly to keep them from accessing other parts of this place or from escaping I guess. Others are... less fortunate."

He let out a sigh, fingers ruffling the hair on the back of his head. Trying to get Chise to snap out of it just under a week ago had been a trial in and of itself. Of course, none of it had helped. "Some are taken up to the second floor, where they do experiments. It- It could be anything. Not many patients want to talk about it afterward, at least from what I've seen."