Room 504, Thursday Evening

[intraspective]

So, once upon a time Ino was pretty sure Romeo had made her promise to tell him about anything crappy happening on the island before someone else did. Which explained the message she left for him.

… Four days late, sure, but she was trying here.

Leaving her door open, Ino was sprawled out on her bed and scribbling into a notebook she'd started working through on Tuesday. Writing down every little thing she could remember about Jenova, what she knew about Jenova from other sources (well, Elena and Reno), and what she could guess about her from—being her for a weekend.

Ino wasn't sure what purpose there was in it, really, except for the fact that—

This way she'd know her new shiny fear as inside and out as she could.

[Open door, open post!]

Comments

[withoutverona]

Eventually -- look, there'd been an important class, and an even more important nap -- Romeo called Ino back. He'd been okay, but he wasn't sure she had been.

Ring, Ring

[intraspective]

Person! Who was not from Gaia! That was excellent.

(... Sorry, Reno, but.)

Ino sounded a bit chirpier when she picked up this call. "Hiii, you."

[withoutverona]

"H'lo, Ino," Romeo answered, swallowing his gum. (He'd been wanting to smoke again lately. The gum helped him stop.) "You sound happy. What did the island do?"

[intraspective]

"I'm happy 'cause you called and distracted me from unhappy things," she informed him honestly, closing her notebook with a snap. "The island turned people into other people again. It sucked in ways totally unrelated to personal embarrassment levels."

[withoutverona]

Romeo groaned. "Again?" he asked. "'Tis as if it keeps a calendar marked with these holidays of its own. I got a shyster my first spring and a teenage idiot my second. Who did you get?"

He hadn't quite twigged to the 'worse than personal embarrassment' point.

[intraspective]

"An evil alien," she confessed, carefully leaving off anything to do with where this creature had been from. "Of the not-funny and totally scary type."

And Ino wasn't scared easily.

[withoutverona]

Which Romeo knew, yes, which was why he groaned.

"You know it's not truly you," he said, once he was talking again. "It's only the island. That just must be ... I cannot imagine it."

"What did she do?"

[intraspective]

Ino looked down at her notebook and sighed.

"She had--minions, from the other students who'd changed. They... hurt... someone, on her orders."

A tug at her hair. "It sounds almost--stupid, that way? She didn't actually touch that someone. But she was there. And being in her head, knowing how she thought... that makes it very not stupid. Am I making sense?" Plaintively.

[withoutverona]

"Yes, yes." Soothingly. "Not stupid at all. It wasn't your choice, but having that in your mind at all -- it would be horrific."

Haltingly, he asked, "Is the other student all right now?"

[intraspective]

"I could've done garden variety evil," she said, a bit wistfully. "That could've been fun, even--and, they're physically fine," Ino said, rolling over onto her back to stare up at the ceiling. "But they're pretending it didn't happen. Which--is bad. They're not going to talk to me though; I tried. Got called names for wanting to help."

[withoutverona]

Romeo was skipping over the disturbing concept of evil as fun.

"Some people do that," he said. "If something bad happens, they -- pretend it wasn't them, it wasn't real. You can't make someone talk."

[intraspective]

... yeah, well. Ino was--learning, but some things would take longer to change than others.

"Other people are going to talk to them," she said, "the ones who actually hurt them. It's not me guessing there--it's me knowing everyone involved. If," oh, screw it, "she's not thinkin' it were real, it's just going to hurt everyone involved worse."

[withoutverona]

"... I am lost," Romeo admitted. "Your other self told people to hurt this girl, but you think that girl might not think it was real? Why?"

[intraspective]

Ino sighed--she was making a royal mess of this.

"She doesn't want to believe it happened. Which is--I guess, if it's a coping method, fine. But it's not fine when the other people involved in this are using their coping methods of working it out and they come up against that. 'Cause then it just makes things messier."

[withoutverona]

"Because they want to talk about it, and they can't, and it's like running into a brick wall," Romeo said sympathetically. "I never understand that. I always need to talk."

Sometimes, he needed to all but talk himself to death, but that was beside the point.

[intraspective]

"If it's just you then--maybe that's a good thing, to not talk 'bout it. But when other people need to heal too... you've got to adapt for that, you know? I've been writing a lot," she confessed. "I talked to one person 'bout it and they gave me a bit of perspective."

Read: Swore up and down that Jenova was well and truly gone in their universe.

"But other than her, I haven't talked to the others involved yet. I don't know one of them very well and the other--it's just a mess."

[withoutverona]

Romeo made sympathetic noises, then played with his hair as he tried to think all of this through. He ... wasn't getting much of anywhere.

So he made a distracting offer.

"Yurika's birthday is Monday," he said. "She'll be 20 and I need help calling her elderly. If you wanted to come stay with us for a day or two, we would love to have you."

This invitation could be cleared with his girlfriend when she was online later; he knew she'd understand.

[intraspective]

"You only need help 'cause you're scared to face her wrath if you insinuate that she's old," she said, smiling slightly at the offer. "You're setting me up to be your decoy."

Ino tucked a bit of hair behind one ear. "If it's okay with her, I wouldn't mind seeing you guys, for sure. Fandom gets very small when you aren't happy with it, you know?"

[withoutverona]

"Do you blame me?" Romeo asked cheerfully. "And I'm sure it will be. I'm not as much fun to shop with as you would be, and your Japanese is still better than mine. When could you come?"

[intraspective]

//Product of it being my first language,// she teased switching temporarily before going back to English. "When...?"

...

Tyler-sensei would probably not be amused if she missed his class two weeks in a row. Algren-sensei would miss his TA. Centurion on Tuesday would definitely notice her absence and she didn't know Professor Gale well enough to judge her reaction, but...

"Whenever, I guess?" she said slowly. "I've got work and things but--if it's getting away for a few days, I'm pretty open. I've only got classes Monday and Tuesday, though, if you're worried about me academically."

There was also the fact that Reno--might be coming to see her, for a day or two, but that thread was still in progress and Ino didn't know what he'd think if she'd just up and disappeared on him either.

[withoutverona]

//Because of that,// Romeo agreed. And managed not to pout.

"I have to talk to Yurika and you should finish that thread," he said. "You're welcome either Saturday and Sunday or next Wednesday and Thursday, though, if you really must not miss classes. I'd be a bad role model if I encouraged such."

Romeo knew exactly how absurd the idea of himself as a role model was.

[intraspective]

"Depends on what kind of role model I was looking for," she said, smiling softly. "But I'll let you get away with that comment--just 'cause you listened to me being moody."

[withoutverona]

"I didn't feel like I was of much help at all," Romeo admitted. "Call anytime."

[OOC: Night! We can coordinate her visit OOC tomorrowish?]

[intraspective]

"You were," she promised. "You've got no idea how much."

He'd offered her an ear to speak to and some place to escape to--how could that not count as help?

[Sleep well! And absolutely!]