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Second Floor Common Room [Late Morning]

After his first class, Ned had come back to the dorms without much in mind as to what to do to pass the time until his class later in the day.

After talking himself into and out of it several times, he'd finally gathered up some things he'd purchased over the weekend and trundled everything down the hall to the common room. It was empty for the time being.

Before he could talk himself out of it once more, he started baking for the first time in years. A pie, of course. A simple apple pie but it felt good to be baking again. It'd been awhile.

[Open CR is open. He'll share, of course.]

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"Ned," he said, waving with one flour covered hand. "And I'm not bad. Good to meet you, Ino. We haven't met. I'm pretty new."

He could do this socialization thing. It wasn't that bad.

Yet.

Ned? Ooooh!

"Ooooh! You're the one that went with Cal to be obnoxious!" Bright and chirpy glee there, yes.

"Yeah, that was me," Ned said, still somewhat proud of himself for that. "And we didn't die. Big accomplishment, I think."

"Not dying is generally a fairly important accomplishment," she noted.

"I thought so too," Ned said, adding some filling to the pie he making carefully. "First time I've ever done something like that so I was glad to keep my life."

Ino considered that thoughtfully.

"I think you need more adventure," she decided after a moment. "One death-defying experience is totally not enough."

"I do?" Ned paused in his pie making and tried not to look too nervous. "What sort of...adventure?"

That got a shrug.

"Something exciting!" Ino decided with a nod of her head.

"Oh."

Ned paused. Exciting to him was...probably not exciting to everyone else.

"Like...buy a new shirt?"

...

...

That got a Look. "...you're... joking, right?" A beat. "I mean, uh, sure, there's excitement to be had in new clothing but that's not the sort of excitement I'm talking about..."

"Oh, sure, yeah, joking," Ned said hurriedly, blushing bright red and almost wanting to throw flour on his face to cover it up. "Ha ha. Joke."

He knew that hadn't covered it well.

Um. Okay. Now she felt sorta bad.

"I... guess it could be exciting?" Ino looked sheepish, almost apologetic but not actually apologizing. "But, um, hopefully buying shirts isn't often death defying or else I've really got to know where you're doing your shopping."

"Well, I hope not either," Ned said, nodding and wincing at his own stupidity and attempts at forcing the joke. "Um, unless there's a gremlin living in the shirt?"

That did, in fact, get a snicker. Though she did wish that he'd stop being so... nervous. Yeah. Confidence, confidence!

"...I've never heard of a gremlin doing much more than making people act really odd." A beat. "Unless you're talking 'bout gremlins from your world?"

Which, hey, was possible.

"I'm from here," he said, using a finger to point at the ground. "Well, not from this common room. Earth, I mean. This planet. I'm not from space or from another time. Just Earth. And I've never seen...a snake let alone a gremlin."

She nodded. "Just checking! I'm from another universe entirely," Ino told him cheerfully. "It's apparently like Feudal Japan only with TV and radio."

A beat.

"And I've got a snake in my room if you'd rather meet that than a gremlin." She'd just, like, keep Kusanagi in his terrarium. Because Kusanagi was mean.

"Another universe so...space?" Ned asked, trying to keep the different universes and times and galaxies and planets separate in his head. "As long as neither of them bit me, I wouldn't be too..." Well, yes he would. "As long as he didn't bite me."

"No space," Ino said, "it's just that my world has no connection whatsoever to this world it's not in the past to it, or the future to it, so it's a completely different universe rather than a different timeline."

"I'd keep him in his terrarium," she assured him quickly. "I wouldn't let him out 'less the person I was doing it for knew how to handle snakes. He's not much of a biter though, really, since he's a constrictor but I totally won't be letting him out."

Ned blinked and tried to make his very slow brain process all that. "Oh." He really wished he had better reactions to the different things people told him.

"He doesn't bite?" Well, that made him a little less anxious about her snake now. At least he wouldn't have to keep anti venom on hand. "No teeth or just no taste for that thing?"

It was really quite easy once you got used to it!

That got a quirked grin. "Oh, he'll try to bite. But since I won't be letting him out he'll probably just flick his tongue at us and look grumpy." A beat. "Kusanagi is always grumpy."

"He's definitely not poisonous though, no way."

"Not poisonous is good," Ned said and, finished placing the top on the pie, slid it into the oven before wiping his hands off on a nearby towel. "I have a dog. He's back in the room. He's not poisonous either."

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he'd ever met a dog that was poisonous, but she didn't.

Ino was... just going to hope not. Though maybe she'd mention it to Hinata, to mention to Kiba, to see if there was any chance of that happening.

"What kind of dog?" she asked curiously. "What's his name?"

"Golden retriever," Ned said, smiling for once. "His name's Digby. He likes to sleep and eat and sleep some more."

"Awwwwww," Ino said, grinning a bit. "He sounds sweet. Can I meet him sometime?"

"Sure," Ned said, smiling wider. "He's better at meeting new people than I am. Loves the attention."

And Ned was secretly grateful that people around here were dog lovers since he himself couldn't give Digby too much attention.

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