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Following the division meeting, and having his cast removed a few days afterwards, Oliver was back to putting in extra hours in the lab. Even most of his eating and sleeping was taken care of at his desk, the only activities that required him to actually leave were daily exercise and maintaining personal hygiene. Sometimes it was nice to sleep in his bed but it was far from a necessity.

Apparently some Life division hunters thought otherwise.

After about a week of this dedicated work activity, Oliver was kicked out of the lab for the afternoon. Told to "get some sun" or something. Unsure of what else to do, he parked himself on a sunny patch of grass within view of the training field, somewhere he could people-watch without getting in anyone's way.

He squinted his eyes in the bright, foreign light of the day, so much brighter than the artificial lighting inside the labs. It wasn't long before he gave up and closed them, and flopped on his back in the grass.

Oliver sat up, raising one hand to shield his eyes against the sun. It had seemed bright even with his eyes closed, he had almost forgotten what it was like to lay in the sun.

"I got kicked out," he replied, not sparing any time with excuses. He was not a very good liar to begin with, and Aro always saw right through him. Deception would always be a failure. "What's up?"

Although he couldn't put his finger on it, something about the situation made him feel a little bit uneasy.

"I haven't really left the lab for four days... um... five, or six..." He explained, waving away the details with one hand. "There's a lot of things to do, and it's not like I can't eat or sleep well enough without leaving..."

He crossed his legs in front of him, shielding his eyes again until Aro sat down next to him. "I'm sure you are, except usually you would shout at me from across the field. You came from over there, right?" Oliver asked, pointing in the direction he had first heard his friend's footsteps. It was clear he would have been seen at quite a distance, and one Arorangi had not been hesitant to call out across in the past.

"I do sleep," Oliver insisted, admittedly in a quiet tone. He was more interested in his friend's reasons for being only half-heartedly cheerful. Arorangi was usually brighter than the sun on a clear day, as a friend it was his duty to observe even the slightest cloud.

Yet Oliver wasn't surprised when he heard the reason behind his friend's mood. Arorangi was so happy, so warm-hearted, it seemed only natural that being unable to spread that cheer was cause for concern. Aro, who enjoyed an almost simple state of positivity, had found himself with a very complicated problem.

"Maybe they just weren't ready for help," Oliver said gently. "Have you known them long?"

Oliver reached over and patted Arorangi's arm. "It might not be something you could have fixed."

He sighed, looking down and picking at the grass. "Sometimes people end up with really deep worries, and talking about it is painful, even if it might be helpful. Um... it's like having a really deep splinter, it hurts trying to get it out. And you can't just trust anyone to try and pull it out either."

The freckled boy was very familiar with such buried worries, there were things he had avoided talking to even Arorangi about because it hurt too much to bring to the surface. Pulling out a splinter was a gentle metaphor in comparison.

Oliver shrugged, he didn't quite know the answer himself. If he did it might have solved quite a few problems of his own by now.

"I guess you do what you can... Words aren't the only way you can let someone know you are safe to trust, you know? It takes more than just that anyway, sometimes problems are like... um, too delicate to let just anyone touch them..."

He smiled a little. "How else could you treat a splinter that you couldn't pull out?"

That answer sounded much more like his friend.

"I'm always too afraid to pull out splinters," Oliver admitted with a sheepish smile. "I soak them in warm water, and they usually come out on their own after awhile." Without realizing it he had summed up not only the best approach for his splinters, but for most of his problems in general. Surround him with warm comfort, and the knots in his mind had a way of slowly working themselves out.

He suddenly brushed at his unruly hair, somehow he had ended up with grass in it, and then looked back over at Arorangi. "Do you feel any better now?"

Oliver winced slightly, but wasn't put off by the firm pat. Arorangi might have gone a little bit overboard sometimes, but it was nice to be treated like he wasn't about to break all the time.

"I'm glad, it's hard though, when you can't just make problems go away..." He glanced over, and then began to blush. "N-nah, um, i-it's no big deal." Oliver rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, and then pulled up a couple blades of grass. One got caught by the wind, and ended up in his hair while he wasn't paying attention. "I-I'm sure you would have figured things out regardless, I mean, you always figure out how to help me..."