Day 58: Cafeteria

[gald_digger]

Anise woke up feeling lucky to be alive. She still felt a bit waterlogged, even though her skin, hair, and clothes were completely dry. During last night's adventures, she'd swallowed a lot of water, and it still felt heavy and disgusting in her stomach. Her arms and legs were tired from treading water. Lying still in her bed, she still kind of

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[rolling_go]

Ippo had never been so grateful for waking up. With a deep gasp, his brown eyes opened, catching an eyefull of the boring ceiling of his room. There wasn't anything more beautiful--No, that wasn't exactly true. But for the here and now, it was wonderful. His sight held color once more as he panned around his room for any evidence of last night's debacle. There wasn't any

[predictator]

Morning so soon? To think that just a moment ago, he'd been in a darkened hallway instead of staring at the ceiling of his room as a soldier marched in to haul him off to breakfast. But despite the repeated suddenness of the transition, greeting the morning suited Izaya just fine. While the nights here afforded more freedom of movement, the days entailed gatherings-those varied persons that had been brought to the Institute would be all in one place, where he could easily observe either the crowd or a few individuals within it...

Granted, the food they'd been serving lately left a lot to be desired, but in the grand scheme of things, it was a small sacrifice; for the sake of his hobby, he would persevere. And speaking of his hobby...

Izaya had turned to the gathering pack after receiving a bowl of his so-called breakfast, looking from face to face until he spotted a particularly gloomy-looking one. And wasn't that... Ah, it was! Makunouchi Ippo-kun, the professional boxer

Sorry big typo

[rolling_go]

At the mention of his name, Ippo looked up, surprised to see the man he had talked with yesterday standing in front him. "Orihara-san... G-Good morning," he acknowledged softly. He didn't expect him to stay after the greeting, but he did and the boxer watched him take a seat opposite with a dazed expression. Izaya's question, however, sobered his face and his eyes fell back to his meal

No worries :3

[predictator]

And there Ippo went stumbling over his words right away. He'd been like that yesterday, too, and so Izaya had to wonder if the boy was always so nervous in talking to others. Maybe he'd keep an eye out for Ippo later on, to observe him while he was with others.

"It was pleasant enough," Izaya answered. In truth there had been so much more he'd wanted to do last night that he simply had not had the opportunity to see through, but it certainly could have been a lot worse than it had been.

He paused after the answer, adjusting the bowl on his tray as he considered how to ask Ippo more. The military styling had returned today, but Ippo had seemed so open to believing the hospital staff when they'd spoken yesterday... It seemed like a shame to crush that willingness so soon by careless wording.

Finally, he settled on using the terminology prevalent on the bulletin board: "But you... To not get any sleep at all; you didn't have any bad dreams, did you?"

[rolling_go]

Pleasant, he said. Ippo had never heard any other patients describe the night as anything close to a pleasant experience. It could have been that Izaya wasn't the type to leave his room. If that were the case, he was sure it probably had been pleasant. Ippo wished the time spent in his room was as pleasing.

But no, like his friend suggested, Ippo had weird dreams. The boxer knew very well that stress was a big factor in restless sleep. He had been there a few times before a match. Still, it didn't make the dreams any less haunting.

"Yeah, I had a really bad one," he conceded, though the loaded word flew right over his head. Subtlety and Ippo mixed together like oil and water. "I woke up really exhausted this morning. I'm not used to being so tired after sleeping..." But he hadn't exactly been training his endurance every day like he used to. Maybe he was losing steam along with his sanity.

[predictator]

Ah... So Ippo had had a bad experience last night; it hadn't just been a restless night. Assuming, of course, that he wasn't talking about an actual dream.

Izaya took a moment to dip his spoon into the gruel and bring it up to his lips for a taste (ugh, still boring) before pursuing the topic. "Would you like to talk about it? It might help to get it off your chest."

While he was less interested in helping and more interested in what had happened, he thought a politer approach would serve him best. Make it sound like telling Izaya was a good idea, and leave the decision up to Ippo in the end; that was always a good way to do things. That way, he never forced anyone's hand. That way, all he did was make suggestions, or give a little push here and there

[rolling_go]

"Ah, well...! It wasn't very exciting really," he added with a nervous, almost embarrassed laugh as he hid his heated face as close to his bowl of gruel as he could. It really was just paranoid delusions of an overactive imagination. He remembered the General's last announcement as he curled up in his bed. He must have fallen asleep soon after because next thing he knew, his roommate had vanished and he was running for his life--or, more accurately, his sanity. And what did he get for it? Nothing but terrible irony at becoming the bulldozing ram he was trademarked to be in the ring. Ha ha ha. Ha. Siiigh....!

"It was just a weird dream. I was running around the institute and for some reason I got turned..." He really didn't want to say. Not that Izaya could make the connection since he wasn't much of a boxing fan, but it was still just so... stupid. "I turned into a sheep for some reason. Pretty dumb, right?" Ippo laughed and took a few bites of his gruel. Okay, next topic of conversation, please!

[predictator]

Turned into a... sheep?

Up until the young man had said that, Izaya had thought that he was just continuing to use 'dream' to describe that night's experience to follow suit (whether or not he believed it was actually a dream was another matter). But he hadn't been prepared for something like that, that he wondered if maybe it really was just a dream after all. But while humans getting turned into sheep sounded like something completely fantastical, so did teleportation and headless horsemen...

And either way, it was interesting. If it wasn't a dream, how had something like that occurred? And if it was a dream, what had Ippo's mind put together to create it?

"I don't think it's dumb," Izaya refuted, with a simple shake of the head. "After all, you must have dreamt it for a reason. Was there something that caused you to... change?"

[rolling_go]

"Ah--M-Maybe? I guess I was just stressed. My day didn't turn out as nice as I thought it would..." That was quite the understatement. He should have known it wouldn't have ended well when Takamura came in. After six years, Ippo still hadn't learned his lesson. Nothing ultimately went well when the middle weight champ came into the picture. He had come with goodwill on behalf of his friends and family (which was the most ridiculous thing he ever heard. Who the hell allowed Takamura to be the ambassador? His friends were so terrible to him!) and, of course, he left as a death god. The man had, for all intents and purposes, ripped Ippo's heart out and dangled it across his back when he said goodbye

[predictator]

Pills. That must have been the 'concoction' mentioned over the intercom, the one in the medical wing that Izaya had wanted to look into. It seemed the dream was real after all-though a simple pill turning a boy into a sheep still sounded implausible, even when compared to all the other implausible things he'd encountered up 'til now. It really was such a shame he hadn't gotten to see it himself...

"I see," Izaya said evenly, lifting his spoon again for another helping of his unpleasant meal. The spoon returned to the bowl once more once he'd swallowed, and he started pushing it around, swirling through gruel in large loops.

Ippo had also said he'd been stressed, that his day hadn't turned out well. He'd looked like he'd been having a hard time of it when Izaya had first approached him yesterday, but had something more happened since then? Beyond the sheep incident? But while Izaya's mind was now focusing on that topic, there was still the matter of how to approach it