Ken hates the experiments. He hates the rough texture of the straps at his wrists and ankles, the way they chafe when he struggles and are pulled tighter when he screams. He hates the feel of the needles in his arms, pinpricks that only hurt the worse for sinking in past bruises from previous injections, failures or successes, he's not even sure anymore. He doesn't know what they're doing to him, doesn't know if he's one of the "lucky" breakthroughs or the eventual rejects, the ones who disappear without warning and are never seen again. All he knows is that he hates the experiments, that his body aches all the time as if his bones are trying to grow outside the confines of his skin, that he's always hungry and always hurting and that the only thing worse than the experiments are the nights.
It's the crush of children that makes it so hard. Ken learned fast that the food isn't shared out equally, anymore than the pain or the abuse is; it's dropped off all at once, thrown to the hoard of children to be distributed with far more viciousness than justice. Ken suspects there's not enough for everyone, that the scarcity contributes to the constant seething panic whenever meals arrive, but he's never been very good at calculation and at least the experiments are good for something, have left him with sharp teeth and fingernails more like claws than not, a tool to scratch and tear and force his way into as much food as he can make off with to his corner.
It's not like they all fight. Ken thinks it's easier when they do, better or at least cleaner to fight with fists and feet and teeth for food. At least he knows where he stands with those children, understands how they think and where he falls in the pecking order. But there are a handful of others, the ones that stay quiet in the fringes of the room, easy to forget until you're all but on top of them. They don't eat, usually, don't sleep and don't talk and don't do much of anything but cry. They're the rejects, usually, after a week or two has passed and they're too exhausted even to cry any more.
This one, the one Ken almost runs into, isn't that bad yet. They must be new, or at least new to the crying; their shoulders are slumped in but don't have the the skeletal thinness that makes Ken skitter backwards with instinctive animal avoidance, and the sound of their tears is still loud enough to be heard over the sound of the scuffle at the front of the room. Ken stares at the other child for a moment, gauging their likely strength and the possibility of getting attacked; then he drops to the floor, close enough to keep an eye on the possible danger but still tucked half-behind the table granting them shared cover.
It's okay, for a while. He scarfs down the first half of his food, alternating between watching the crowd of other children and this particular one as he chews too-big bites and swallows before he's quite ready. Only when the ache of hunger in his stomach eases does he hesitate enough to really look at the other child, to see the tension in the wrists wrapped around folded knees and the dark of shoulder-length hair under the white bandage around their head.
"Hey," Ken says, more out of curiosity than anything else. "Why are you crying?"
He's not expecting a response. He's never tried talking to the criers before; no one has, really. They've been left to their own devices, in the forgotten corners of the room until one of the experimenters comes to take them away, only sometimes depositing them back in the space. He's startled, then, when the other's sobs quiet, stop, when there is a pause and then a head lifting to stare at him. It's a boy, Ken can see now, the frames of oval glasses set over eyes that have a flatness that unsettles him in some way he can't define. It's like the other boy isn't seeing him at all, is looking through him or past him instead of actually at Ken's face.
"You blind?" Ken asks, the words sharp in his throat like they're a threat.
The other boy blinks, shakes his head without speaking. Some of the tension fades from Ken's shoulders at this proof of responsiveness, at least partially.
"Why don't you eat?" he tries next. "You'll starve out here by yourself. Aren't you hungry?"
A shrug, this time, then: "Not really," in a weird whispery voice, like the other boy has cried all the emotion out of his throat. Or maybe it's from the experiments, like the time Ken blacked out on the table and could only growl rough incoherent noise for a week before words came mostly back to him.
"Idiot," he says now. He still has a roll left, along with some kind of jerky and a single piece of gum he managed to seize when someone closer to the center of the pile kicked it free. He offers the bread, stretching out to hand it over the distance without getting any closer to the other boy. "You hafta eat, don't you know?"
There's a pause; then a hand unfolds, reaching out to take the bread. The fingers that brush against his are colder than they should be, like the other boy has been sitting under an air conditioner too long.
"Thanks," comes that whispery voice again, and when Ken looks the other boy is eating, if without the anxious rapidity that characterizes Ken's own consumption. He watches for a minute, waits until the roll is half-gone; then he holds out the jerky, too, extends it to the other without speaking at all.
There's a blink, a pause. "What about you?"
"I ate some already," Ken declares, reaches out to take the piece of candy still left. "And I got this for me."
"Gum's not food," the other boy says, but he takes the jerky anyway, tugging it from Ken's hand and eating it between bites of the bread.
Ken waits until the food between them is gone, until he's sure the tears aren't going to start up again, before he speaks again. "Don't you have a name or something?"
"Chikusa Kakimoto," the other says. He takes the last bite of jerky, looks up to the other boy. His eyes look a little less red with tears, although they're still not quite focusing on Ken's face; Ken can see that they're not black like he thought they were at first, but purple, like a dark bruise or the sky at night.
"I'm Ken," Ken says.
They both fall quiet again, with nothing else of any importance to say, but Chikusa doesn't start crying again, and Ken doesn't think again about the food he gave away, even when his stomach starts growling a few hours later.