Day 54: Breakfast

[arc_wrench]

For once, HK was working very hard to hide a giddy facial expression as he met his nurse at the door. He'd already hidden his scalpels in his clothing. The wonderful, sharp implements of doom would be needed today. “Statement: Despite my reticence towards all processed meat and plant products, I am experiencing intolerable levels of hunger,” he

Comments

[bitpartgod]

Wait a second, but he was just

[human_sponge]

Rather than having the normal experience where he woke up with a start, almost crashing from his bed to the floor, Peter opened his eyes slowly this time around. It had felt something like he'd been walking up those steps with Tsukasa forever, until it had faded away into some sort of fog and then it was morning once more

[bitpartgod]

With the number of people coming in it was difficult to really keep track of any one person- and every time Kibitoshin thought he saw someone he recognised and tried to follow them to the food section he had to take his eyes off of the door, which only meant that even more people passed him by. He had to try really hard not to seem surprised when someone eventually managed to creep up on him

[human_sponge]

It seemed that Kibitoshin was his normal, nervous self, and so Peter took that as a sign that the weirdly-colored kid was doing fairly well. His smile lingered as he took his seat, settling into it comfortably. While he was pretty bothered by the fact that the previous night had been so useless for him, all he could do now was put it behind him and focus on the future. One night at a time, one foot in front of the other

[bitpartgod]

Staying out of trouble was always good if you could manage it (for some reason trouble always seemed to come at him), and Kibitoshin was definitely glad to hear that Peter had been sticking with it as a general rule. It would have been a real shame if anything had happened, partly because the Kaioshin knew he'd have felt terrible if it had and he'd not been there to help. Which was sort of selfish, really, but oh well.

The other reason it would have been a shame was that, as he'd thought before and as Peter just went on to prove pretty quickly, the man really was incredibly nice. So nice that he probably didn't realise why asking what was wrong wasn't exactly the best thing to do at that moment.

Kibitoshin's expression fell. "M-me? I..." Okay. What he needed to do was answer calmly, gracefully and apologetically, without burbling or begging for forgiveness or any kind of behaviour like that which was, quite simply, unbefitting of a Kaioshin. Right. It wasn't like he'd endangered any lives by not turning up to- ohCalm and graceful

[human_sponge]

Maybe he shouldn't have asked after all, seeing how Kibitoshin's face fell and he started to squirm uncomfortably (even more than before) the moment that Peter had said something. Still, it wasn't like him to ignore when someone seemed out of sorts, so he couldn't have really stopped himself from expressing concern

[bitpartgod]

Peter hadn't made it up either...?

Kibitoshin blinked- once, twice, then three times, just to make sure he'd heard Peter correctly and hadn't just managed to process the words strangely and optimistically in his brain. Then he broke into a warm, delighted smile.

"Ahh, really? So it wasn't just me?! I'm so glad! I thought for a second there I'd really-" ... that. Probably wasn't the mature response to have, was it? Especially not when they were supposed to have been helping people. Ahh, that was definitely selfish! Very quickly indeed he put on what he hoped was a far more suitable look of dignified-but-relieved concern, which seemed like an awful lot of emotion to get across in one expression but he could try

[human_sponge]

That sort of reaction really wasn't what Peter had been expecting. Neither of them getting up to those rooms was definitely a bad thing, and for a split second he looked at the kid like he had two heads. How could he be glad about something like that

[bitpartgod]

It only took a couple of moments of scuffing his knees and bumping his head on the table while he tried to get comfortable for Kibitoshin to start to have second thoughts about his tactical maneuver, but the fact that Peter joined him only a little while afterwards kept him down on his knees. Obviously, that meant that it had been a good idea, right? As good as it got in a situation like this, anyway. There wasn't really anything they could do about people throwing food. The Institute people, on the other hand...

"You're telling me," he agreed, peering out from through the chair legs. He'd been doing his level best to avoid looking at the men in their severe black uniforms, but he didn't really have much of a choice now that someone had started a full-scale coup. It seemed kind of silly, really- why would you attack when there were more of the enemy? Even he didn't make mistakes like that!- but now that they were in the thick of it, that didn't especially matter. "They really look like they mean business

[human_sponge]

It was definitely uncomfortable to be scrunched under the table the way he was; both of them were about the same height, which meant that they were in the same boat when it came to their limbs having to be pulled in tight and their heads brushing up against the bottom of the table. In fact, it made Peter feel pretty ridiculous overall, but he hadn't wanted to get Kibitoshin in trouble when the guy was already so much of a worrywart