Room 504, Sunday Evening

[intraspective]

Ino had been planning on getting back from her scroll work, out in the preserve, showering, and flopping out on her bed with the very boring book of history she had to read. (Okay, it wasn’t that boring, but it was history and therefore she pretended it was. It made sense to her, honest.) What really happened, though, was that she got back from her shower, wriggled into her pajamas and found a letter from her dad saying that she was to resume taking missions back home, starting soon, and she’d get more information about when and where she was to be when it was necessary.

So, now, she was standing in front of the full length mirror she’d hung on her closet door and staring at herself contemplatively. Was she ready for a mission? She didn’t know. Man.

[Door and post are open.]

Comments

[withoutverona]

Romeo sat on the floor obediently, back against the wall. "I was moving furniture so my room would feel bigger. The desk went where my toe was."

Because it was all the desk's fault.

"The nail's sort of purple."

[intraspective]

She tossed a pillow in his general direction, stealing another for herself, and flopping down on it in front of him.

"I guess," she said, raising one eyebrow, "that the desk did not take kindly to being moved. Did you want it healed, or did you just want to complain?"

Because, really, Ino was fine with either.

[withoutverona]

Romeo adjusted so he was leaning against the pillow. "I was just here to complain, but if you feel like healing, that would be awesome," he said.

That last word still felt a little funny to him.

[intraspective]

She grinned at him for the usage of it though.

"Off with the sock then!" she chirped, assuming he was wearing socks, "And I'll deal with it. Other than that, you good lately? I haven't been 'round as much, I guess, so I don't know."

[withoutverona]

Romeo grimaced a little as he untied his shoe and yanked the sock away. "Other than that, I am," he said. "I have two insane teachers but my last class is just movies, and at least two new girls think I'm mad myself but that's hardly my fault. Has something kept you busy?"

[intraspective]

She didn't answer straight away, more intent on internal concentration as her hand filled with a soft green light--chakra, of course--and rested it over his foot.

"You know the drill," she said, almost conversationally, even though half her attention was more on her hand and his foot. "It doesn't hurt, getting healed, but it can be a bit tingly and such. I think most of us seem mad to the new kids, really, so that is totally not help-able and, my teachers are all old ones, so nothing exciting there 'cept that I got made TA for a class on this world's, this country's history. So I'm doing a lot of reading for that, and working on my healing, and the scrolls for Reno. Oh, and I just found out I'm back on active duty back home too."

[withoutverona]

It did tingle; Romeo wiggled his toes a little.

He was nodding along with her news until - "Active duty? That doesn't sound like the kind of thing to just slip in there, Ino."

[intraspective]

"It's not, I guess," she admitted, "but I don't know how what to think about it, so slipping in had to be the way to say it. And now that you know, maybe that'll work better. I don't know. I've just been staring in the mirror for awhile now 'bout it, so... it's something."

Ino pulled her hand away from his foot, healed now, and let the glow fade. She was getting quicker, at least, for things like that.

[withoutverona]

"Thank you," he said, quickly replacing the sock. "Did staring in the mirror help at all? I never give myself good advice."

[intraspective]

"I don't know," she said, leaning back on her pillow and crossing her legs. "I was looking less for advice, and more for judgement. Since the last time I went home, I haven't much cared for mirrors. They showed how weak I was compared to everyone at home. And here, I can't tell how weak I still am compared to them. Better than I was, I think, but still..."

[withoutverona]

"You could never be weak," Romeo told her quietly, serious. "At least, I would never call you so."

[intraspective]

"I lie a lot, you know? Even to myself, though I used to think I was bad at that too. So now I don't know if I'm strong, or if I'm weak, or what I am because I can't tell if what I'm thinking is the truth, or is a lie, because they've kinda all melted together." She smiled, slightly. "When I act happy, I'm not always happy, and when I'm angry, sometimes it's because it's easier to be angry over something stupid than to actually deal with what's really the matter. My mood swings protect me, I guess, and I use them that way. But it means that what's real and not gets kinda confused too."

She glanced over at the mirror on her closet door. "I'd like to think I'm strong, but I fear that I'm weaker than I know. And when I look in the mirror I don't see my improvements, only my failings. It's a pretty mess I've wound myself into, and at least I can say with confidence: I've no one to blame but myself."

[withoutverona]

That all sounded over his head, except this: She was his friend, and she was sad. Sad girls were a problem, and for the first time since he had met her, Romeo fleetingly wanted to kiss Ino, just because that was the easiest way he had of possibly making a girl happy.

He knew that wasn't the tool to use, though, for dozens of reasons. Which meant this one required thought. He was silent for a long moment.

"You're you," he finally said. "You're you and you're human and of course you have flaws. I have days where all I see in the mirror is ..." a killer, but she'd never understand that. "It doesn't matter. But if you caused the problem on your own, does it at least comfort you to think perhaps you can solve it on your own?"

[intraspective]

"Some days," she said slowly, wondering at what didn't matter, "it does. And I feel like I am figuring it out, getting better, and then other days it's like I'm worse than I ever was. And some of it... is just living here."

"The only way to fix that would be to go home, and I like it here even if it's not home. So it's a choice I make, but dealing with the fact that, if I were at home, at this time, I would no longer be a child," she tugged at her hair, almost ruefully, "and instead an adult, stronger than I can imagine here... I don't know. I've been learning different things here, than I would've at home. But I don't know what they all add up to strong or weak."

[withoutverona]

"You have another two and a half years to sort it all out, if you choose to stay," Romeo ventured, not at all sure he was going the right direction. "I don't know. I think about what life was like in my home, where I was thought an adult at 15, and I can't but wonder if we're meant to be so, at that age. Maybe staying here will end with you even stronger than you think you would be at home."

[OOC: Annnnnd I crash. Night!]

[intraspective]

She didn't know if there was a right direction, honestly.

"Maybe," Ino sighed. "I don't know, and I guess all I can do is go and find out. But I wonder, and I worry, and it's harder when I can't see my own strength when compared to my friends. I'm not sure I understand what sort of strengths there are, other than the ones I've known from home."

[Sleep well!]

[withoutverona]

"Would you call me weak or strong?" Romeo asked, genuinely curious as much as he was trying to make a point. he knew that he couldn't do anything she could from home, though.

[intraspective]

She considered him for a long moment.

"Both, I think," she said slowly. "I mean, your world seems pretty close in a lot of ways to this one, so the things that are strengths in my home aren't so important here. And you're capable of being strong on your own which is... pretty strong to me." Because she sucked at it. "And your weaknesses... you wear them well, mostly, and the ones you care 'bout help shore them up so they aren't so weak."

[withoutverona]

"But deny me a gun and I'd still barely last a day in your world, if I understand you," Romeo replied, with a small flattered grin. He'd half expected her to say weak. "Anyhow, the point I was trying to make was that people can be both, and maybe it doesn't matter so much if you fall behind your friends in some ways, because you might get stronger than them in others by being here."

[intraspective]

"We have civilians," she noted, "and they seem to live okay."

If it had been solely based on her world, she'd have said weak, but he didn't have to live in her world so... he wasn't. "Maybe," Ino said thoughtfully. "Though I'd feel more confident in that if there wasn't fact that, if I'm not strong enough, there's a good chance of death, you know? So I've got to be, and I don't know what our missions will be like now. Chouji made Chuunin--that's the next rank up--so I'm the only one with the lowest rank now. But that means our team'll be on harder missions too 'cause we'll be expected to handle more."

[withoutverona]

"And you don't want to drag your friends down."

Romeo fell thoughtfully silent after that. He didn't have good advice, and he couldn't tell her she was wrong to worry.

[intraspective]

"I mean, I know they'll look out for me 'cause it's my first time in over a year and a half out on a mission but... they'll expect me to take care of myself too, 'cause if they worry too much 'bout me, something worse could go wrong with them."

She sighed. "I don't know. Chances are it won't be anything super awful right at first 'cause Hokage-sama knows that I've been off active duty for so long, but it won't be easy either, and I just don't know enough right now to not worry or anything."

[withoutverona]

"They won't even tell you what you'll be doing, so you can train before you go home?" Romeo asked, sounding worried himself. "Or is it that they don't know?"

[intraspective]

"I don't even know when I'm going home," she confessed. "Just that I could be called back whenever. And no, we never know our missions before they get assigned. So I've just... got to hope I'm good enough as it is."

[withoutverona]

That sounded too much like Reno's old job for Romeo's comfort, and he couldn't hide his grimace.

Impulsively, he slid forward to give Ino a hug. "I have faith," he told her. "You'll get through it."

he couldn't know that, but he didn't have a better idea for what to say.

[intraspective]

She hugged him back, and smiled against him. "I'll do my best," Ino promised. "Thank you."

And, really, the only thing different from her job and Reno's was that she wasn't ranked high enough to do as much dirty work as he had done.