Room 504, Friday Evening

[intraspective]

After talking to Hurley, Ino was glad to wander back to the room she shared with Zack—that was still weird to her, that she couldn’t say it was just her room anymore—and collapse on her bed.

Yay. A week gone by and she hadn’t—been weird and issuey at people other than... well, Bod had gotten a bit, but he hadn’t seemed to care and Ino just... wasn’t going to push that. All right, fine, and so on. She was fine.

Repression was probably bad, yes. Ino closed her eyes briefly, then sat up and stared at the open door. She should shut it. But that seemed like far too much work and instead she fumbled for one of her notebooks. A pen.

If she was thinking, she didn’t have to think.

It made sense to her.

[Open door, open post.]

Comments

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela considered that, then shook her head.

"No. Sorry. The Conditioning..." Well, it made a lot of things easier. At least... it did when it came time to live with the decisions you made. Even if the consequences of those decisions were less than optimal.

[intraspective]

Ino nodded, holding back a sigh.

"I know," she said. "But that's what I feel like. There's no solution."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Emotions are difficult to deal with." Triela remembered that week where her hormones had been running rampant and suppressed a shudder. "The Conditioning makes things so much easier."

Freedom was such a small price to pay for clear purpose and peace of mind, wasn't it?

[intraspective]

Ino kept her shudder carefully masked at that.

"I just... I don't know what I'm going to do, you know?"

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Do?" Triela asked. "What you always do." Right?

"Live. Train." She smiled a bit. "Remember that people here care about you, too. One person in particular." She shot a pointed glance at the closet full of Zack's things.

[intraspective]

A smile touched her lips but not her eyes.

"I destabilize without...," she trailed, figuring Triela would get it.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela nodded. It was another one of the ways they were so alike.

"You'll manage." What choice did she have, right?

[intraspective]

Ino tried another smile.

"You think so, huh?"

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Don't you always?" Triela asked with a slight smile of her own. She reached out toward Ino's shoulder for what she hoped was an encouraging touch. "Don't we both always?"

So far, at least.

[intraspective]

"We're tough, right?" She leaned into the touch. "We can do anything."

She didn't really sound like she believed it, not right that second, but Ino was trying.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Well," Triela allowed with a chuckle, "maybe not anything. Like, I still can't wear a dress without feeling weird." Much less a bikini.

[intraspective]

"But dresses are cute," Ino said, seizing the lighter topic gratefully. "And fun!"

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"They're..." Triela trailed off. "I prefer suits."

Which was habit as much as anything. Triela hated changes to her routine.

[intraspective]

"Suits can be cute too," she said thoughtfully. "We could get you a girl-suit, all pretty colours and with funky bows."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Bows," Triela repeated. By the sound of it, she thought that 'bows' was a terribly dirty word.

"I think I prefer simple elegance." Which was fine. If a bit boring.

[intraspective]

"Yes," Ino said patiently. "But it's a way to be girly while keeping you in clothing you're mostly comfy in."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela thought about that.

"Is being girly all that much fun?" She didn't... get it. For a while she'd wondered about Leto, but now he was gone, so...

[intraspective]

"It can be," she said, "depending on why you do it. What's my favourite colour?"

That actually made sense in her head as a conversational leap.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Purple," Triela answered immediately.

Then, not sure that was the right answer... "Right?"

Someone did a rather poor job of paying attention to the details of other peoples' wardrobes.

[intraspective]

"Right," she said, nodding. "Now go and open that closet and tell me what you find."

Inside that closet? Triela was going to find a fair bit of purple, yes. But the other major colour? Was a great deal of pink.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela shifted through clothes thoughtfully.

"Have you been stealing things from Momoko?" she teased, amused to find the pink. And a bit surprised. She hadn't noticed it before...

[intraspective]

She shook her head, actually smiling.

"It's Zack," Ino explained. "He likes me wearing it. He doesn't ask me to, but the smiles I get from him are worth it to me."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Oh." Triela blinked.

"Why?" It... well, for all she saw that it mattered to the people around her, she just didn't understand.

And she was surprised to find herself wanting to.

[intraspective]

Ino chewed on her lower lip.

"Because... when he's happy, I'm happy. So the effort it takes to make him happy is--important to me."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"So... sort of like me and Hilshire." Only not really very similar at all.