fandomhighdorms | Second Floor Common Room, Sunday Evening

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Second Floor Common Room, Sunday Evening

Her toys had asked her, very politely, to not practice her violin that night. Since she'd already done so with her Papa Jono earlier that day, she'd agreed and left them to their own devices and wandered down to the common room.

She was sort of hungry, but couldn't decide what to eat, so after pondering that for a bit, she turned on the television, flopped on a couch, and after a while started playing on her laptop.

Well, not playing, not exactly, but rather reading up more on the Hunter Exams.

They were kind of important and… not really that far away.

[Open, yo!]

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Ringo had had a lazy Sunday. She'd slept in, which had meant she'd started her usual AirTrek ride around the island late, which meant she'd gotten back to the dorms kinda late.

She'd taken a quick shower, and now she was checking out various common rooms trying to find something to eat that didn't take much work. She was tired, and sometimes you could totally get lucky!

Of course, once she hit the second floor, she got distracted when she spotted Alluka.

With a mischievous grin she sneak, sneak, sneaked over toward her friend before jumping out with a "boo!"

And, who knew, maybe Alluka wouldn't even notice that obvious sneaking bit and actually be surprised.

And, wouldn't you know it, but Alluka had been engrossed in her reading, with her back to the entrance to the common room.

So she'd totally missed Ringo's awful sneaking around.

Which meant that Ringo startling her was going to be greeted with a shriek and Alluka tumbling off the couch in a flailing panic.

With laugh, Ringo jumped forward, her hands reaching out in an attempt to make sure that neither Alluka nor her laptop ended up landing on the ground too hard.

"I can't believe that worked!" she declared with a smirk.

Well, she saved the laptop, at least?

Alluka blinked up at her from the floor, then burst out laughing.

"Ringo! That's mean!"

If Alluka hadn't laughed, Ringo might actually have believed her, but as it was she just stuck her tongue out.

"You gotta work on your situational awareness. I'm just helping!"

Uh huh.

Ringo just better hope that this doesn't prompt Alluka to start offering the same kind of help to her given how easy it was for Ringo to get lost in whatever she was doing.

Yeah, Ringo was totally going to get paid back for this many, many times over. And Alluka was better at sneaking than she was.

"Then help me up!" she insisted, waving one hand at Ringo. "And, and then get me ice cream!"

That counted as supper, right?

Ringo giggled and reached out a hand to Alluka. "Fine, but I'm getting some for me, too, so if there's not much left, we're going to have to split it."

She glanced over at the laptop. "What were you looking at, anyway?"

Alluka took that hand and hoisted herself up, still giggling.

"We can take ice cream from other floors, if we have to," she said, following Ringo's gaze. "I was looking up more on the Exam."

"Ooooh, an ice cream expedition. I could get behind that."

Her smile didn't go anywhere, but suddenly Ringo looked more thoughtful. "Oh, yeah? I guess that's only, like, four months away, huh?"

"Four months less two days," Alluka said promptly. "It starts January 7th, so we need to be ready before that."

Which was kind of terrifying, honestly.

Ringo chewed on her lip for a second, then blew out a breath. "I guess we better get serious about getting ready, huh?"

She nodded, taking her seat on the couch again.

"Applications have to be in by December 31st," she said, looking a bit concerned. "I... I haven't mentioned it to my papas yet."

"Oh?" Ringo didn't sound particularly shocked or upset, but she looked over at Alluka curiously. "Any particular reason not to?"

She snorted. "Not that I've mentioned it to my sisters or anything."

"Papa Jono hasn't been feeling well," Alluka admitted. "So, so I didn't want to worry him. Something in the summer hurt him, I think, but I don't know what."

She shrugged a little.

"And it seemed wrong to mention it to Papa Hannibal without telling Papa Jono."

"That makes sense."

Ringo looked thoughtful. "Do you think they'd get upset if you sprung it on them at the last second?"

Alluka leaned back against the cushions.

"I wasn't planning to wait until December," she said, though the thought had crossed her mind.

"I guess figuring out when to tell people is just another part of all the planning we need to do. I mean, there's so much we need to do between now and January, right?"

"So, so much," Alluka said, though she smiled, too. "And we have to plan for so many things."

A beat.

"And not just for the Exam either."

"Oh?" Ringo cocked her head to one side, frowning slightly.

"Like what?"

She clearly hadn't done enough thinking about this.

"Well, there's classes, and what we'll do about those," Alluka said, since she'd been thinking about this a lot. "The Exam runs anywhere from a week to over a month, and we won't know until we're there and going through it how long this one will take. I've got my job, too, which I'll need to figure out. We also need to figure out what we're going to focus on getting good at--the Exam doesn't only test your fighting abilities, it can test anything."

She waved Ringo closer and lowered her voice, "And we've got to figure out what we're doing for the holidays, too."

"Huh, that hadn't occurred to me," Ringo admitted. "The class thing could be tricky."

Hmm.

Wait.

"What about the holidays?" Ringo asked, not following Alluka's line of thought.

Alluka's line of thought was confusing, it was true.

"Kathy's birthday is on the 23rd," she explained, "and then there's Christmas and New Years but we also have to make sure we're at the Examination place on time and figuring out how to get there is also part of the Exam, so it might get tricky to do everything."

"Oh." Ringo chewed on her bottom lip. "So Christmas and New Years would be really tricky, too."

"How long do you think we'll need to figure out where to go, and then to actually get there? Are there any discussions of how long it's taken the past couple of exams?"

"I haven't found anything really," Alluka admitted, shoving over so that Ringo could sit if she wanted. "Though some of the comments make it sound like some people show up weeks and weeks before the Exam starts."

Ringo rubbed at her face. "So, like, we might need to start right after classes end?"

She thought about it. "But, well, we could probably try to get a Portal back for Kathy's birthday, at least, right?"

"Maybe," Alluka said, since she hoped so. "But I don't know yet. I haven't found enough information on anything so far."

She leaned back to peer up at Ringo.

"I did think of something to get Kathy, though," she said, "if you want in on that."

"Tell!" Ringo demanded, leaning over closer, clearly very interested.

"Weeeeell, Kathy and I were talking about cooking and her family," she said, "and she's going to show me how to make some traditional dishes from her culture."

Which was great, but not the important part!

"And I found out that kimchi is a really, really important thing to Korean families, to the point where they have their own fridges, just for it. But, but Kathy doesn't have one..."

"Oooooh. So you're thinking a kimchi fridge?" Ringo nodded thoughtfully. "That's actually a pretty good idea."

She nodded.

"But they're not exactly cheap," she said, "so... so I was wondering if you'd want to go in on it with me? Papa Hannibal and I looked up a few of them already, just to check it out."

"Definitely interested!" Ringo enthused.

Then she paused. "Um. But how, you know, not-cheap are they?"

"It really, really depends on the size and model," Alluka admitted. "Some are thousands of dollars but some are much cheaper, just a few hundred."

"Right," Ringo said, drawing the word out slowly. "Um, what kind were you thinking?"

"Not the most expensive!" Alluka said, laughing. "And Papa Hannibal has set me the mission of seeing how big her kitchen is, first, since the half-size or mini models are cheaper too."

A beat.

"Also, Kathy's moving this week back to the apartment above Luke's," she added. "I, I said that I'd help, and that I'd see if you would."

"Of course I'll help!"

Ringo paused.

"Um. If I wouldn't be in the way, I mean."

She still had those bursts of awkwardness around Kathy these days.

Alluka blinked.

"Why would you be in the way, Ringo?"

"I don't know." Ringo looked awkward, twisting her fingers together.

"Sometimes I just feel like, I don't know, I don't fit anymore?"

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Second Floor Common Room, Sunday Evening

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NFB, plz!

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Re: NFB, plz!

Re: NFB, plz!

Re: NFB, plz!

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