Room 504, Monday Evening

[intraspective]

Ino had made it through the day. Between getting back, going to class, and talking to Tyler-sensei, she’d figured that whatever Hinata-chan said that she’d totally done her quota of being around and putting her schedule back on normal sort of tracks.

Of course, that’s when she made it back to her room, showered and wriggled into her jammies that Ino realized, depressingly, that she wasn’t sleepy. Making a phone call killed all of thirty seconds, and then she pulled out several gardening magazines and tried to start planning for Tyler-sensei’s flowers. Maybe she would go the love note route, just to make him facepalm.

Her door was left open, as a matter of course.

[Door and post are open! ETA: Anything mission related, beyond it happening, is NFB please!]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

Reno had gotten back to his room, checked his voicemail, fed the ferret, showered and all of that good stuff that people tend to do after a week of... being dead and eating people. Good times.

The message was a welcome kind of perkiness, and he could have phoned back, but they lived in the same building, and he really only had to go up one floor. The exercise would do him good.

"Knock knock, yo."

So would the company.

[intraspective]

"Reno!" she chirped, without even looking up, though she quickly followed that with a grin. "In. Now. I have chocolate if you want it!"

Had he ever been in her room before? Well, it was a bit like a miniature hot house, between the sunlamps and the load of plants she had kicking around.

[raspberryturk]

Reno was pretty sure he hadn't ever been in her room, no. The plants were... actually really damn awesome, especially to a kid who had grown up more or less without.

"Chocolate? Gimmie." He stepped into the room, looking around. "Hell of a setup you got in here, Ino."

[intraspective]

She gently lobbed a chocolate bar at his head, pure milk chocolate-something, and beamed at him. "It's 'cause I haven't had a roommate since... um... last January? Something like that? So I kinda took over the room. I'm so doomed if the school is ever mean enough to make me share 'cause the plants aren't going."

[raspberryturk]

Reno managed by nothing short of a miracle to actually reach up and catch the chocolate bar before it hit him in the face, realizing about halfway through unwrapping it that this would be the first meal he'd had in days that didn't consist of parts of other people.

Oops.

"Thanks. And anyone with a sense of taste has gotta see the upside to havin' a room full of plants, yoto. It's all alive. Good... atmosphere. Fresh air or whatever, right?"

[intraspective]

If he told her that, she'd go make him a sandwich. Sandwiches she could do. Because, seriously, that was just sad in all sorts of ways. "Sit," she ordered, shifting her magazines so there was room on the bed.

"Lots of clean oxygen. Totally have the least build up of bad air in here." Ino grinned at him. "You ever want a few of them, you can have them," she said, "I totally accept bribes in the form of getting up to mischief as payment." Or even a simple 'can I have it?', but shhh. "The crazy gorgeous red-and-gold ones over there though, are a bit rare 'cause they're from Karal's world, so they might take a bigger bribe. Most everything else is from this world though 'less you go down to my garden."

[raspberryturk]

Heeey. A place to sit. Reno was more than happy to take her up on that offer.

"Maybe I'll ask you about somethin' a little closer to grad, yo. I'm probably goin' back home in a few months, and Edge still don't got nothin' growin' in it, but if you figure you can teach me how to keep a plant from dyin', there's a place in what's left of Midgar that a flower would probably do pretty damn well in."

Tucked in amongst a bunch of yellow ones.

"How'd your mission go?"

[intraspective]

"Not a problem," she said, smiling. "All you gotta do is ask, and a flower tutor extraordinaire is at your disposal."

Hey, Ino knew she was good at plants.

"I," she said, "am totally running on way too little sleep all 'cause Hinata is a madwoman who said I should stick to my normal schedule rather than crash out like I normally do. She made me go to class." He'd probably seen her there. "Bully, that's what she is." In the nicest sense of the term. "And, it went?" she shrugged a bit. "Bit of trouble on the way there, but we took care of it and walked away while they didn't."

She grinned viciously. "That totally stopped our client from harping on how pretty little girls ought not to be ninja."

[raspberryturk]

"I knew plenty of pretty little girls who made damn fine Turks," Reno noted, actually smiling faintly at her grin. "And I pity the idiot who thinks that pretty little girls are any less dangerous than anyone else. People who think that way usually feel it worse before they go down, yo."

[intraspective]

"Don't think they had much time to feel it, you know? 'Cause it was over pretty quick. They weren't, like, super well trained." Bandits generally weren't. "But I know they thought I was the pushover too." Another shrug. "Don't really mind it when the other guy is doing the underestimating, you know? But when it's the client, it gets annoying 'cause you can't hurt the client to prove them wrong, so you just got to bite your tongue."

Ino tugged at her hair a bit. "First time I ever, well..." Ino shrugged, hoping he'd get it without her spelling it out. "I don't know. I keep thinking 'bout how people here would say I ought to give a damn more 'bout it all, but all I feel is..." She wriggled one hand. "Victory. We won, they didn't." Beyond the vague disquiet of gaping smiles where mouths weren't, she was telling the truth.

[raspberryturk]

"You know..." Reno eyed her for a moment, and then busied himself in unwrapping his chocolate bar. "The world's made up of different people. The lovers, dreamers, fighters, killers. Some of 'em live to love, and some of 'em live to win. You live to win, and winnin' keeps you livin'. You're perfectly suited to live in the world you came from. I'm made to live in mine."

The wrapper was off, and Reno was making a point to work on the chocolate slowly. Shoving it in his face all at once was tempting, but it was a dead giveaway that he was absolutely starving, too.

"There's always gotta be a first, when you live to win. If you handle it like anyone here would, then there ain't much point tryin' to win no more, 'cause it'll beat you up when you go back home."

[intraspective]

Her lips twisted a bit.

"I know, that's one of the reasons I cut my hair," she said, "marks me a child, if you know my family, it's a tradition that we've got our hair long when we're 'adults' and I decided 'cause of here that I didn't deserve that."

She tugged a strand in front of her face. "Might have to start letting it grow back in 'cause I'm getting better, I'm not falling behind no more. I can't imagine not living for winning. It's just kinda weird, when so many people here don't think the same way 'cause their worlds aren't the same, and then they expect you to think the way they do and then when you don't you all get a headache."

[raspberryturk]

"You know, a week ago, I would'a said somethin' throwaway and stupid about how people here need to get a fuckin' taste of real life the way we get it, so they know that yeah, sometimes people gotta learn how to kill just so they don't end up dead."

He stared at the chocolate. It was so, so much better than meat, right then.

"I think I kinda take that back."

[withoutverona]

Her door was open, so Romeo saw her through it when he took one of his (very few) trips away from Dojima to find some sodas.

He paused in the entrance. "I don't know if you're still mad at me or not, but you were away, weren't you? I think radio said."

See? He remembered to acknowledge their fight.

[intraspective]

She glanced up at him, and shook her head ruefully.

"I'm not mad at you," she promised. "I don't like it, but whatever. I was out on a mission, actually. Come in if you've the time. Sit."

So she could hug him. Ino could totally hand out hugs like candy today. She didn't get what had happened, but that people were off and out of it was totally obvious.

[withoutverona]

"I have some time," he said, edging in to take a seat. "I don't like leaving Yurika alone for long. She was -- has anyone told you what happened? How was your mission?"

[intraspective]

"My mission went well enough," she said with a shrug, because this was Romeo she was talking to. "We got through it without anyone getting hurt."

There'd been a whole lot of dead on the other side though.

"All I know is, um," she made an apologetic face, "I'm quoting here 'zombies tried to kill us all' and that they bit people and tried to eat them." So he was getting a hug. "Dojima-san was...?"

[withoutverona]

He'd take that hug, and cling for an extra beat. "A zombie," he said quietly. "She tried to attack me, but someone saved me. She recovered yesterday. They all did; a lifted curse."

[intraspective]

She stayed close by, even while leaning over to grab a chocolate bar that she dropped in his lap. "It's good for you," Ino informed him. "And Dojima-san. Is she okay? I mean, not a zombie, that's a good start but like..."

Okay okay. Because he didn't seem to be exactly there either.

[withoutverona]

Mmm, chocolate. He unwrapped the bar slowly. "She's getting better," he said. "She doesn't want to talk about it. We're just ..."

They were in bed, not talking, which Ino could probably put together from the length of his pause.

[intraspective]

Ino smiled slightly.

"Together," she said, nodding. "That's good at least. Can't blame her for, you know, not wanting to talk 'bout that..."

[withoutverona]

"It's not as though there's anything to say. It was awful, Ino, all of it."

A pause.

"They took Reno, too."

[intraspective]

She chewed on her lip for a minute.

"That does explain a bit," she admitted. "He stopped by earlier. Was jittery."

So she'd nonsensed at him 'til he'd seemed better.

[withoutverona]

"He was at the shop but wouldn't say much," Romeo said. "He's to buy me a drink tomorrow."

Romeo ran a hand back through his hair. "If I tell you something, will you think even less of me?"

[intraspective]

"Said a lot, but little 'bout the week," she shared. Bad week had about summed it up. "But he ate my chocolate and looked steadier when he left."

Ino took a deep breath. "I don't know. It depends what it is, will you tell me anyway?"