Yamanaka Ino (Iris)

Somewhere far across the sea, Romeo was done with classes at last, and more than a bit at loose ends. He'd watched all the Japanese TV one man could take (a heroic effort); now he was dialing people in Fandom. He'd been thinking about a vacation, anyhow.

Ring, ring

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Phone! Ino brightened for one moment as she scrambled for it before pausing and making sure to check the number before she actually answered it.

... Not home then, okay! And even better, someone she hadn't heard from in a while!

"Yo!" she said, with a fair approximation of 'normal-Ino'. "Romeo!"

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"Ino!" Romeo answered lightly. "Hello! What odd happenings have I missed by not being in Fandom?"

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She snickered and sprawled out on her bed, notebook falling to the side. "It's Fandom," she said, trying to think of things. "Though I think it's been fairly quiet lately, which probably isn't a good sign, you know? 'Cause it always seems to 'wake up' with a vengeance."

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"It does," Romeo agreed. "I hear nothing, and then the next month 'tis evil mutant frogs who spit acid." A beat. "I just cursed you, didn't I?"

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"That's okay," she said generously. "I'll hide behind Zack as he goes and gets rid of them."

Which was a total lie, of course, as Ino would be right in there fighting.

"Spitting acid would make dodging an excellent skill to have!" Sorry Romeo, Ino was thinking about this now. "But would it go through things like walls? Trees? Shields? 'Cause that'd suck, don't you think?"

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"I don't" -- romeo hadn't actually thought about this before he spouted off, no. "If you couldn't control what it went through," he finally decided, "it'd be useless, wouldn't it? You'd just burn your mouth to shreds before you could hurt anyone or anything else."

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"True..." she said slowly. "And this is only going to give the island more ideas! If it happens, I'm blaming you and wonderin' how the island tapped my call."

That was how you said that, right? Ino wasn't quite sure. She didn't really care either, but whatever.

"I've got to admit I've been pretty bad at listenin' to radio lately," she confessed. "So if there's been a spat of weird, I haven't really noticed."

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"What have you been doing instead?" Romeo asked, though he was never the type to pore over radio unless he knew the broadcaster, himself. "I doubt you'd miss an overlarge spate of weird, anyhow."

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Uh.

"A whole lot of studying?" she tried. "And hiding and pretending things are perfect? Some of it's pretty--close to amazing, really. But, obviously, it's not all that way but that's all--depressing--and I feel bad about dropping that on you if you just want fun conversation."

Which was her rambling way of saying that, really, it was up to him. She could actually talk to him about some of it.

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"I called to see how Reno is doing, and ask you'd feel about a visit," Romeo answered. "You can drop it on me, but -- you know I may not be any use save a listening ear."

Seriously. Two and a half years in, hopefully she'd figured his uselessness about some things out by now.

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Some part of her kinda loved that he'd called her to see how Reno was doing. It made sense, in a peculiar way. Reno lied. So did Ino, of course, but not about Reno.

And yes, she'd learnt.

"I know," she said, with a sigh. "I don't know. It's not something that's fixable and it's not something anyone can really help with and it's in the middle of everything at the moment and I don't really know what's going on with it and I'm tired of--of not being normal-me. It feels like a failure, somehow, on top of everything else."

She paused.

"I can tell you about the good instead?" she tried. "And you can listen to that and help me convince myself that the good needs to be paid more attention than the bad of--stuff."

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Mostly, Romeo didn't want to call Reno and ask how he was and find out he'd been fired or forced to teach geometry or something like that. Hence Asking Ino First.

"Normal you includes the things you care about," he pointed out. "It's not a failure for those to change. But -- tell me about the good. I'll cheerlead for you. I'm sure I have a pompom somewhere."

Edited Date: 2010-07-10 12:56 am (UTC)

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"Yo, Ino," Triela called, poking her head into the room. She frowned thoughtfully. The place looked different. You know, like someone else had their stuff in there...

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"Yo," she said, smiling slightly and raising an eyebrow at the frown. "Somethin' the matter?"

Because, yes, pretending her room was the same as always would totally work.

Really.

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"You redecorated."

Yeah. That was totally what Triela thought was going on here.

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Right. The good. She could totally do the good.

...

"... Did I ever tell you I was dating Zack?"

She couldn't remember. Which was... kinda sad in and of itself.

Edited Date: 2010-07-10 01:01 am (UTC)

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Ino cast a glance at some of Zack's things innocently.

"Maybe a bit."

Brat brat brat!

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"With someone else's things," Triela added.

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"I knew you were close to him," Romeo answered. "I don't think I knew you'd made it official."

No, he couldn't remember either.

"How is it going?"

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"You know," she said thoughtfully. "I think you might be right."

Bravo, Triela!

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She looked around for a moment, then turned to Ino.

"Whose things?"

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She glanced around her room, noting the small things that indicated Zack's presence.

"A lot happened," she said, smiling slightly even though not all of it was good. Losing Angeal had... been definitely not good. "But I'm sharing my room now. My idea--not Fandom's paperwork messing up."

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Ino closed her notebook and propped her chin in one hand.

"Guess."

It was a challenge!

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