Chapter Three: The White Walls

*One of the nurses she had seen around the hospital before was standing in front of her, white uniform on and hair bobbed perfectly. Serena shuddered. It was too classic for her taste. The woman looked like she had just stepped out of the fifties.

“Doctor Carl? I’ve brought Mr. Yui to meet you.” The woman called into the room past Serena.

“Oh! Well, bring him in. I suppose there’s no real reason to delay him.”

“Right.” The nurse nodded in agreement. She stepped into the room and held the door open. In stepped a boy Serena was sure she had never seen. She would have remembered otherwise. The boy in front of her was taller than herself, but not tall in general. His messy chocolate hair hung in disarray, obstructing his vision. From behind his long, mess bangs Serena could see deep, oceanic eyes that stared indifferently into the room. He was so… square.

“You must be Hiiro Yui?” The doctor smiled tiredly and rose from his seat. “I’m Doctor Carl Benson, but please, doctor or doctor Carl will do just fine.”

“Hnn.” Hiiro grunted. Then he realized he had better talk. He didn’t want them thinking he was crazy. Crazier anyway. “I’m Hiiro Yui.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Hiiro.” Just then the corner of the doctor’s eye caught something. He sighed Oh yes. “Serena? I’ll see you three days.”

“How unfortunate for us both.” Serena murmured. She was still studying the newest addition to their crazy farm family.

“I suppose I should introduce you?” The doctor said, noticing Serena’s eyes. “Serena, this is Hiiro Yui. He’ll be here for the next week or so. Hiiro, this is Serena Tsukino. She’s one my more stubborn patients.”

“Gee doctor, you make me sound special.” Serena muttered sarcastically. She smirked when the doctor rolled his eyes. “Nice to meet you Hiiro. Have fun in here, I know I sure as hell do.”

“Sarcasm is not appreciated Serena.”

“That’s why I do it. Be seeing you Hiiro.” And Serena strolled out the door, the nurse who had brought Hiiro following her. Throughout the entire meeting, Hiiro remained silent, watching the interaction between the doctor and the girl. He couldn’t really make out most of her features, except maybe her long light brown hair, because of the dimness of the lights.

“Hiiro, sit. I’m sorry about that. Serena is… one in a million.”

“She give you a lot of trouble?” Hiiro clipped out.

“No, not really. At least, not until she’s in here, one on one with me. But we aren’t here to discuss her. We’re here to discuss you. Tell me about yourself Hiiro.” Hiiro sighed. He hated shrinks. They always sounded so phony.

“What do you want to know?”

“Your past to begin with. Where did you grow up? Your family? What you do for a living and why you felt you needed to enroll yourself in this institution.”

“I can’t say much about my past. I don’t have a family- I was raised by an old man who called himself J on L1. I fought in the Eve Wars- both of them. I came here because I promised a friend I would.”

“You don’t like to talk much hmm? Don’t worry. So you say you promised a friend? Why?”

“He told me my violent tendencies could get dangerous.” Hiiro snorted inwardly. If that wasn’t the biggest lie he had ever told then he didn’t know what was. His ‘violent tendencies’ were already dangerous… so dangerous that he had nearly killed one of his friends.

“Yes, they could. Well, it’s a good thing you came before you got out of hand and couldn’t control yourself. We can discuss all of this, you know, motives for wanting to be violent, other ways to release anger and such, and you’ll be good as new in a week.”

“Fine.” Hiiro submitted.

“Well then. Now that we’ve met and introduced each other, we can discuss your schedule. As you may have been told, we like to keep busy around here. It helps to take the minds off of some of our patient’s problems, as well as gives us perspective into the way their minds work on an everyday basis. I assume you probably will want some time alone… that’s fine. But I will ask that you participate in most of the activities going on.”

“Fine.”

“Wonderful. To start you off with, we have art class this afternoon and every night after dinner we show movies. I believe they’re showing a romantic comedy tonight. Something called… ’10 Things I Hate About You’. We let the patients take turns picking the movies, this happened to be Serena’s night to chose as a matter of fact. Anyway. Tomorrow in the morning we are offering a self-defense class… it’s a new idea that another of my patients asked me to try out. I liked the idea.”

“You aren’t worried a crazy person will hurt themselves or another?”

“Well, yes and no. You see, not all crazy people go around muttering to themselves and hearing voices in their heads. A lot do, but not all. A few are simply misguided people who have episodes once in a while. We also have a few people who are anorexic or have tried suicide, or drug overdoses, or… I think we even have a kleptomaniac and a pyromaniac, though they aren’t my patients. Anyway, they are all quite capable of doing normal things in everyday life, but they have a few more problems than everyone else, so they’re here and not out there.

“Most of them are sane enough to take a self-defense course and understand why it’s being taught and when to use the moves. And they do need to know how to defend themselves sometime. It’ll be good for them.”

“Aren’t you afraid they’ll be able to use the techniques on your nurses if they don’t want to do something?”

“No. Our nurses have been put through a great deal of grueling training, most of which includes dealing with unwilling patients who are physically incredibly strong. They’ll be able to prevent anything from happening.”

“Hnn.”

“Anyway. Tomorrow afternoon we’ll be playing cards, so you can skip that if you would like.”

“Hnn.”

“And… I think that’s about it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, one of the nurses, or even another patient. They won’t bite your head off, and most of them know the rules fairly well.”

“Fine.” Both Hiiro and the doctor rose.

“Well then, I’ll see you tomorrow Hiiro.” Hiiro simply nodded and turned to leave. This doctor was at least semi-interesting to listen to when he rambled. Hiiro frowned. He shouldn’t care. It didn’t matter.

Walking down the halls, Hiiro found himself lost. Where was he? All of the walls looked the same: white. Wherever he turned, white. It was making him sick, actually. It was so bright and blaring. Why were mental hospitals colored? He felt dizzy, so he stopped and leaned against the wall for support.

“The walls’ll do that to you. It’s all in the color.” A dark voice seemed to laugh at him. Hiiro looked up. In front of him was a petite girl with long golden locks and large, sapphire eyes. She was dressed in all white, but Hiiro knew she couldn’t be a nurse. She actually looked somewhat familiar. “They figure that if you’re not crazy when you first come in here, they’ll make you crazy by the time you leave.”

“Who…”

“Serena. We met earlier. You probably didn’t get a good look in that office though. I keep telling doctor Carl he needs to put more lighting in there.” His eyes lit up in recognition. But he had thought she had brown hair. Must have been the light. She smirked again. Hiiro didn’t like her smirking at him. It was like she was laughing at something he didn’t know about. But he needed her help to find his way again.

“Can you tell me where room 26 is?”

“I can.”

“Well?”

“I can tell you. I didn’t say I would.”

“Will you tell me?” Hiiro grumbled. She was a comedian too? This girl was everything- first she was sarcastic, now she was trying to be funny.

“Yes. You need to go back the way you came, take your first left, and then the second left. Your room will be down that hall.”

“Hnn.” He grunted rudely.

“Whatever. I don’t need some psycho near me.” She clipped. Then she turned on her heel and walked away. Psycho? She thought he was the psycho? At least he hadn’t been dragged into the institution. At least he had come of his own will. She, on the other hand, was probably being forced to stay. Oh yes, and she was so much more mentally stable than he was.

As he walked back to his room, Hiiro passed a large set of double doors. Curiosity got the better of him and he opened one of the doors and looked in. It was the art class the doctor had mentioned. People in the room were working with clay, paintings, models, and other art supplies.

“Hiiro isn’t it?” One of the nurses approached him. “Come on in and join us. We’re just in the middle of art class.”

“No…”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.” The nurse chided with a stern grin. Hiiro felt obligated. Stepping into the room, he took in his surroundings quickly. His soldier’s instincts told him to search the room for any and all means of escape before he moved to do anything.

“So Hiiro.” The nurse chattered. “What would you like to do? You can paint, or mold clay, or build, or…”

“Nothing.”

“You can’t do ‘nothing’. This is art Hiiro! Art is another way we can express ourselves. Give it a go! It’s fun.” The nurse chirped cheerfully. Hiiro looked at her. At one time she must have been a patient in the institution, because she was too… expressive… to be normal in Hiiro’s mind.

“Why don’t you grab a seat at the table and try something?”

“Fine.” ‘Anything to get you off my back!’ Hiiro’s mind screamed.

“Great! What would you like to try?”

“I’ll draw.” Hiiro muttered, not really caring. He supposed he could put this time to use and try sketching out a few new ideas he had had for improving Wing Zero. He wanted add a new set of guns near the shoulders of the mobile suit. He also wanted to find a way to increase the amount of fuel he could carry.

Taking a seat near a large window, Hiiro sat and waited patiently until the nurse brought him a pad of paper and a set of pencils. Soon Hiiro became involved in his etchings and forgot the room full of people around him. Beginning with the schematics of the original, he flipped in-between it and the new model he was trying to construct. Finally out frustration, he gave up. Crumpling the new drawing into a ball, he hurled it away from him and bent his head down to start again. Just as he began to get back into his drawing world, he felt something hit him smack dab in the middle of his forehead.

Picking up the crumpled ball of paper, he opened it and realized it was the same one he had thrown earlier. But there was a note scribbled on the bottom corner.

“Roses are red, violets are blue, it’s rude to throw paper, or didn’t anyone ever tell you?” He stared at the note and blinked. And blinked again. Then he whipped his head up to see who had thrown the paper ball. Across the table from him sat one figure that was beginning to become very familiar. *

~~~Hey! PLEASE REVIEW and tell me what you guys think! Much love, Vixen~~~