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

[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."

[intraspective]

"Bad week?" she said, purposefully messing with her magazines so he could make whatever face he wanted at that. "Wouldn't say it's throwaway, but I still wish people'd at least figure out that not all worlds work like theirs. Some are meaner, so the people got to be meaner."

[raspberryturk]

"Bad week," Reno echoed, thankful that Ino wasn't looking at that particular moment so that he could wince something horrible. "I think if people around here ain't figured out that everywhere ain't quite like their homes by now, they're all lost friggin' causes."

[intraspective]

Ino was just going to lean over and try to hug him while she reached for one of her notebooks. See, it was totally about the notebook. The hug was just a reflex sort of thing.

As far as she was telling. "Know some lost causes then," she commented, "since I know a few who get all hung up on certain issues."

[raspberryturk]

Reno wasn't going to protest to the hug so long as she wasn't going to make a show out of it being one. Today was a good day for hugs, even for guys with way too much blood on their hands even before they started eating people to add to it.

"If you wanna name names, I'm sure I could find 'em and beat that pacifist streak outta 'em," he half-joked, glancing at her before returning to the chocolate. Foooood. "I'm good at that."

[intraspective]

Most of the time Ino had only about enough tact to fit into a thumbnail. But when it came to people-who-she-wanted-to-fix Ino had mountains and mountains of it. So the hug was totally not a show, even if it was her real goal there.

"Nah, that'd probably just give them more ammo to wail about how we're awful-bad people, and even if we are that gets annoying." She settled in next to him, just close enough to touch, but not enough to make it look like she was being all weird hopefully, as she casually flipped open her notebook and tugged the pen in the coils of it out. And stared at the blank page for a moment. A beat.

"You any good at love notes?" Ino could so supply nonsense for him right now.

[raspberryturk]

Well, that was a question right out of left field, wasn't it?

Reno blinked over at her, looking more than just a little confused.

"Never wrote one in my life. Why, you got a crush on someone?"

[intraspective]

"I've got crushes on loads of people, and have a boyfriend," she said airily. "No, this is 'cause I was talking to Tyler-sensei 'bout flowers and now have to do an arrangement for him and he said 'do what I want' and that it might look like I'm kissing up to him though I totally am not, 'cause he likes me anyway," well, it was true, "but I thought it would be funny, only I've never actually done one."

Ino tended to be more direct.

[raspberryturk]

Reno had to stare for another moment, and then he was biting his lip so that he wouldn't break into some kind of hysteric fit of giggling or something.

"A love letter for Mr. Durden," he repeated. Just to be sure he was getting this straight. "Oh, shit, you gotta put somethin' about how you adore the way his... I dunno. The way his biceps bulge when he's throwin' a punch. Or say somethin' about his eyes. Love letters always talk about people's eyes, for some dumb-ass reason, yo."

[intraspective]

"Yeah huh, him. 'Cause it proves you're paying attention to their face, or something?" she said dubiously while scribbling eyes down on the paper. "Uh. How I totally adore the way he fights...?"

Ino was a bit dubious there. "Even though he's still, like, a civilian... okay, maybe not that one, though he's not bad. Uh... maybe about explosions."

A pause. "Of love!" Now she was laughing.

[raspberryturk]

Reno was just barely containing his chuckle, then.

"And soap. You need to mention soap. Your love for him is fragile like the small crystalline soap bubbles on your fingers when you wash your hands. Or some junk."

He was so, so full of shit.

... Which was probably a good thing when one was drafting a love-letter to one's teacher.

[intraspective]

Yes, yes it was. If Tyler-sensei took this seriously, then Ino was never ever coming out of her room again. Except, possibly, to die of laughter.

"And smells orangey-fresh?" she said, giggling. "Though I've got mint happening lately, so maybe minty clean. Mmmm, toothpaste."

She chewed on her pen. "Something 'bout covered in pie? Anemone and I exploded a pie at him once, that's totally logical." Logical probably wasn't the word for it. "And how his intellect is akin to..."

"...I'm really bad at this. Maybe I ought to look it up on the internet, or something. Templates. There's got to be templates, right?"

[raspberryturk]

"Love-letter templates?" Reno tilted his head, thinking for a moment. "I guess so. If the internet has templates for resignations letters and junk, they probably have somethin' for a love letter, too, yo."

The internet had everything.

"And if it don't, then now that we mentioned it, someone out there is gonna make it exist. That's how the internet works, yo."

[intraspective]

"I'll have to check!" Another thing for work tomorrow. Ino was going to have a ridiculous amount of fun.

She grinned up at him.

"I was thinking, when it's done and I got the arrangement done I could sneak into his office and leave it." Ino twirled a bit of hair around one finger. "You know, use the excuse to check out for something a lot more interesting than a love letter."

[And a quick Googling has the first link for love letters leading to a site where they want you to pay for these templates. Heeeee.]

[raspberryturk]

"Somethin' hideous and purple," Reno noted, trying not to sound too hopeful.

He needed Smoochy-killing-therapy, something awful.

[Hee! I saw!]

[intraspective]

"Very," she said, beaming. "Which totally needs to be taught a lesson, you know. Before it completely forgets what we did to it the first time 'round. I was trying to think if there was a way to, like, hang it. You know, in the air, or something. Make a dramatic statement when we were done with it."

[raspberryturk]

"You know how to tie a noose?"

It was a very casual question, really. If Ino didn't know how, Reno certainly did.

[intraspective]

"Not that well," she admitted ruefully. "Learnt how years ago, never used it, so if you're offering a refresher course or something I'd love you forever."

She hummed. "And I get to buy knives for it," she said, almost dreamily. "Because that way I don't have to worry about my kunai giving the game away if we want to leave a few knives stuck in."

[raspberryturk]

"Tell you what, you teach me how to not kill a flower, and I'll teach you how to tie a noose and I'll spring for the knives, yo."

Buying weapons was fun.

And useful, all things considered. And probably wouldn't raise too many eyebrows after last week, for that matter.

[intraspective]

Weapons were in the top three of most awesome things to buy ever, really.

"I think that's a deal," she said, offering her hand so they could shake on it. "And I'll make sure you got seeds to get better at not killing, yeah." Ino hummed. "Totally going to be watching you anyway."

Ino knew he had more experience at torture and stuff than she did. So she'd watch and learn and revel in the learning from someone who didn't mind.

[raspberryturk]

"I think I'll consider myself lucky if I can get somethin' easy to grow," Reno decided, hesitating for a moment before shrugging and shaking her hand. He wasn't going to drag it to his mouth and start gnawing on it, he was fine. "What's easy? Beans? They make kids grow beans or somethin' around here, don't they?"

[intraspective]

She noted the hesitation, but didn't comment on it.

"Beans are easy," she said agreeably. "And you can get pole beans that're a better use of space, if that's limited, or the bush ones if space isn't such an issue. Their big thing is that they need warmth. They don't like it when it gets cooler. But they grow quick, and have a long harvesting period."