fandomhighdorms | The Grounds around the Stables, Thursday Early Evening

It had been a pretty nice day, and so A.J. had ~~handwavily~~ spent the day at the junkyard, rooting around for spare parts and inspiration, and returned to the dorms with his spoils trailing behind him in his little red wagon. And stopped a moment to watch Ino putting things in the ground.

"...What're you doing?" he asked when he realized he couldn't figure it out on his own.

Ino glanced at him. Then back at her little rows of markers with bits of coloured ribbon attached to the tops to help differentiate. "Laying out my garden," she said eventually.

"Oh."

He was going to guess that, really. A.J.'s head tilted and he watched for a moment before he let go of the wagon's handle and went over toward Ino.

"Need help? Or would I just mess up your system, or whatever?"

She shrugged a bit. "If you want to help, you can. I wouldn't mind. I can't say I'm all that great company at the moment though."

That got A.J. frowning. "Why not? Something wrong?"

"Define wrong," she said dryly, not looking at him, "and maybe I'll be able to answer it. Really, it should be 'everything is fine'. But it's not."

Hmmm. A.J. bit his lip a little as he considered this answer.

"Um, well. I think maybe pinpointing why everything isn't fine is a good place to start in defining wrong."

"Oh no," Ino said, "I've done that already. I even found the answer. But I don't like the answer."

And so, she was Out Of Sorts.

A.J. scratched his chin a little. He was getting brief flashbacks of earlier when he found one of those spinny windchime things that went round and round and round and rou--

It was sitting in the wagon behind him now.

"Uh, so, what's the answer, then?"

"The one that's the most uncertain," she told him, knowing that it wasn't helping. "Either way, my choice would hurt someone. But I know, I can already tell, that people would rather my choice be the opposite of what it is. Will be. I haven't gone through with it yet."

"Oh."

A.J. thought he was starting to understand, slowly, but surely, and he bit his lip. He could take a guess, at any rate, and drew in a tentative breath. He could empathize with Ino, he could. But that didn't mean he didn't fear Ino's wrath when she was in a mood like this about this...about the assumed topic.

"Well, at least it's finally a choice, though, right?"

"Yeah," she said, kneeling down to afix a marker more firmly in the ground, "but then, seven months away does give you a fairly good chance to make up your mind without outside influence. Or distraction."

His guess was probably right. And no, he really really didn't want to say the wrong thing.

"So," A.J. said, tilting his head a little as he watched Ino and then, finally, ended up crouching down at some markers near-by to straighten them a little, just out of having something to do, "how'd you finally make up your mind?"

She glanced at him, eyes dark. "It's not hard once you've realized what you miss more, what makes you happier, and what's more likely to have you relaxed and feeling safe."

A.J. glanced up at Ino enough to catch those darkened eyes, and his jaw shifted a little as he looked back at her. Maybe it was just this touchy reception he was getting after not really talking to her in a while (not entirely her fault, he realized, and, if what she was talking about was that weird time thing, it would have been even longer for her, really), or maybe it was just how he got to handling things after dealing with Annette all those times, but he had to ask. He really had to. She acted like no one else in the world had ever had to make a choice like that before, and, to be honest, her sulking was touching a bit of a nerve with him. Perhaps that wasn't necessarily her fault, either; he was the one bugging her right now, after all, but if she didn't want his opinion, well, then, she shouldn't have told him anything in the first place, and if she didn't want people talking to her, she shouldn't be right outside the dorms.

"Why are you all so doom and gloom about it, anyway?" he asked, dropping his eyes to the little marker between his fingers when he did. He found he couldn't just look at her when saying it. "I mean, you've got a solution to your problem. It's not easy, no, but things'll be better in...the long run..."

The ending trailed off a bit; he was thinking of how to answer to any response that got out of her, using the whole thing with Troy and Beauty as an example, but then it hit kind of hard that perhaps it wasn't a good example after all. Sure, Troy was happy with his new boyfriend now, but A.J. right now stood with nothing.

"I know that," she said, unfazed, having had this conversation with Liir the day before, "but I don't like hurting people I care about. And this will hurt. I'd rather..." she trailed off.

Ino would much rather hurt herself than someone she cared about. Always.

"Rather what?" A.J. asked. "And I know hurting people can suck, Ino, but, you know, it's still probably going to happen. Might as well have some control over it rather than let everything get to be too much. The more it goes, the more it'll hurt in the end."

...

She bit her lip, then said, quickly, before she could change her mind. "I'd rather hurt myself than either of them," Ino said, honestly, "I've always been like that."

"Yeah, but, right now, you're hurting all three of you."

A.J. nervously licked his lips a little; the conversation and the parallel that were being drawn in his mind were making them dry.

"I mean, if anything, if that's what you'd rather have happen, you could end up like me and end up getting hurt anyway. But, I mean, I hurt Troy a lot, and now he's happier for it. He's happier with that Sky guy than he'd ever been with me, I can just tell, y'know? So it worked out better for him in the long run."

He was thinking he could say something about Annette in this context, too, but he still wasn't sure about all that, so he didn't. He just kept playing with the marker between his finger.

"Probably," she admitted, glancing at him sideways, "but that doesn't change how I feel about it. Hurting one worse, I mean. Not when..." neither of them had ever had someone to care about them before, "there's issues. With both of them. And I do care, really care, about them both. I don't want to lose everything. I'd still want to be a friend, a good friend."

"You say you'd rather hurt yourself than anyone else," A.J. lowered his head a little more, "but then you say you're afraid to lose everything. What if you losing them is what's best for them? All I'm sayin', I guess, is that it's one thing to say you'd rather be selfless and another to actually be it. I don't know; you already said you made up your mind anyway, so there's not really a point in me saying all this, but...Well, I guess what I mean is, shit happens to good people, but what good does it do to get all moody about it like this? You need a little time, yeah, but you've had quite a lot of time, by the sound of it. I don't know. And it's not like you're the only person who's ever had to do this before, either, that's all."

Babbling? What babbling? And now that marker was the straightest marker ever.

"If you don't like me being moody, then you can just go. Why do you think I'm out here and not in a common room or something? I know people wouldn't appreciate me being in a mood like this." Ino got up and fetched another handful of markers. "And I never claimed to be selfless. I'd just rather not have them hurt if I can help it. I know I'm not the only one to have to make this choice, I know, but it doesn't mean that that's going to help. I've never cared like this before for even one person and now there's two."

A.J. was quiet for a long time, made a slight shift in the marker again, and then sighed. "Just as long as you actually do something," he said, and then started to get up. "I'll leave you alone, though. Sorry to, y'know, bother you in a public place like this. I saw you, hadn't talked to you in a while, and wanted to catch up, but, I gotta admit, my violins for this situation are starts to lose their strings."

"I've already made my decision," she reminded him, "I won't sit on it for long. I never have been able to do that. And you're not bothering me, I'm just in a foul mood and wanting a fight. It is good to see you."

"Yeah, real good, I'm sure," A.J. muttered with a sigh, wiping dirt from his fingers on his pants. "If I talk to you next week, though, and you haven't done anything, I reserve the right to be disappointed. Fair enough?"

Ino looked down. "Fair enough," she said, "but now you've got to help me with my garden right here and now."

Because she didn't want him to go yet.

"I already told you that I'd probably just mess it up," A.J. pointed out. "Besides, if it means just having to sit there and hear you bitch about the situation you put yourself in, and having me bitch back, I don't see the point."

"Alright," she said, having to concede to his point, and then tucking her emotions away, "we can talk about something else then. You're good with colours, so you tell me--what painful shade of yellow should I dye Deadpool-san's clothes?"

Ino was, actually, a lot better at shoving things to the wayside now than she'd been before. He might notice.

A.J. tried to turn the roll of his eyes hidden as a slight shifting of them to the side, but he spoiled it a bit with a sigh. "The most painful shade you can find, obviously," he answered, but then continued, "and I can't just switch gears like that, sorry. I'm jus' gonna get going, Ino. Work to do, class tomorrow..."

"Yeah, whatever, it was worth a shot," she shrugged a little, sticking a marker in the ground and moving to the next spot, "I'll keep you updated, or something."

"I'll check on it myself, don't worry," A.J. said. "But, you know, for the record, maybe, especially if you're all big on the whole being a friend thing, you could, I don't know... 'What are you doing?' 'Working on my garden.' 'Oh, need some help?' 'Sure, if you want, and, oh, by the way, how are you, A.J.?' 'I'm good; how are you, Ino?' 'Not the best, A.J.' 'Really, what's wrong?' And then, 'boy, A.J., thanks for listening. I'm glad I didn't get all defensive or anything.' Jus' saying."

She took a deep breath. Then let it out. Another breath. And out.

Right. Right.

"Sorry," she muttered, "next time I'm gone for seven months and spend most of that time alone I'll try and remember what it takes to be a good friend." Pause. "And I am thankful you listened. Even though I did get defencive."

"Well," A.J. frowned. "I know I'm not nearly as important, or anything, but, hey, I spotted you and wanted to talk and haven't seen you for just a week or so. You haven't seen me in over seven months, or something, and....well..."

He shrugged. "It's cool, though." He picked up the handle to the wagon. "Good luck with everything."

"I didn't mean it like that," she said quietly, "that you weren't important or anything. You're one of the few people here that I actually call a 'friend'. I'm just... adjusting. It's easier with other people, when we keep it light and I don't have to think, can pretend."

"I'm not pretending with you," she said, "sorry. I'm trying to work things out."

"Thought you said you already had them worked out, though," A.J. said. "What's the point of talking about it if you already know what you're going to do? Just do it. Don't sit there, working on gardens and talking about it like it's the end of the world or something."

"No," she said, "you've never heard me talking like it's the end of the world. You ask me what's wrong, I tell you, and you tell me I shouldn't be thinking like that. I can't help it. And I don't have everything worked out, making a decision about that does not help me refigure out any other problems. And it definitely doesn't make readjusting from Paris 1899 any easier either. It's not the only thing that's bothering me, but it is the easiest to talk about."

"Fine, fine, maybe I overreacted a little," A.J. held up his hands defensively, "but, yeah, you did sort of talk to it like it's the end of the world. But, you're right, I asked. I don't know. Maybe I'm not good talking about this right now."

"Maybe neither of us should talk about this," she suggested, not commenting on the 'a little' part, "until I've made my move. Then we'll see."

"I think that sounds good," A.J. nodded. "I think it'd be better if you didn't talk to anyone but them about it until you make your move, but....Just tossing that one out there. If you do have all these other unspoken problems, might as well get one taken care of."

"Well," Ino said, "I don't think not talking at all would do anything good for me. But I'll see what I can do to keep my conversation light."

The Grounds around the Stables, Thursday Early Evening

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