Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

[bigdamnprincipal]

Oh look, there were tables and chairs over here too, away from all the informational stuff. Enjoy the food!

[WAIT FOR THE OCD PLEASE. OCD IS UP. This is the FIRST post for general mingling. Please use this post first, if your browser can handle the comment load. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are here and there is more room for mingling here.]

Comments

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal shrugged. "Because I'm a crappy conversationalist."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

She blinked at him. "That requires apologies now?"

Ino could think of several other people to totally owed her apologies if that was the case.

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Well, I mean..."

Yeah, this was definitely not helping with his awkwardness. Cal winced a little, biting his lip.

"I feel bad about it."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

She beamed at him reassuringly. "Don't," Ino said, "I've totally talked to people way worse at it than you and done just fine."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Fine, then," Cal commented, looking away a little as if that would help stop the fact that the response got a little bit of a smile out of him. "I take it back. There."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

She grinned and bounced a little. "Excellent! No need to waste apologies on me."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Annnnd, she was bouncing again...

"I'll just have to remember that, I guess. It's Ino, right?"

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

What was wrong with bouncing?

"Uh huh," she said brightly, "and you're Cal."

You know, in the event that he'd forgotten.

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Bouncy girls were a strange and terrifying anomaly!

"Good," Cal nodded. "Good to know we're clear on that." No apologizing for being a bad conversationalist, he was Cal, she was Ino. They were really on a roll, here.

"Is Ino sho--"

Cal cut himself off before he asked that particular question, realizing it could be turned right back around on him and then he wouldn't know what to say.

"Err, it's a different name, Ino. I like it."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

She blinked at him, wondering what he'd started to ask, then shrugged a bit.

"Is Ino what? And it's a bit of a family tradition," she admitted, with a cheerful wrinkling of her nose, "as far as I can tell, in this world, it's Japanese."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Um..." Damn, she caught it. Cal went ahead and asked, trying to decide on what to say if she asked it back. "Short for something. But I guess it just being Japanese makes sense."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

"It's not short for me," Ino said cheerfully, "but you can call my Dad that and it'd be a short form of his name. What about you?" Of course she was going to ask.

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal winced slightly.

"Yeah," he said, before he could even consider lying. "It's short for something."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

She considered him, and the wince. "Something embarrassing?" Ino guessed.

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal wasn't exactly sure if embarrassing would be the right word for it, but it was close enough.

"Kind of."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

Another considering glance.

"Can I know?" Ino wondered. "Or should I just drop it?"

She could be nice; sometimes.

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal took in a breath.

"Dropping it would be nice," he said, honestly. "It's kind of a...bad topic. Sorry."

There was a reason he stopped himself from asking, after all.

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

"I suppose I can drop it," she said, obviously teasing him.

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Suppose?" Cal asked, teasing back with a tone to suggest that there might be trouble if she supposed otherwise, although Cal didn't have the slightest idea of how he could ever follow through on something like that.

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

Ino's eyebrows shot up, and smiling she shrugged. "What would you do if I said otherwise?" Ino laughed. "I'm totally able to handle myself."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Well," Cal pointed out after a moment of thought, "I did just meet you. It's not like it would be a whole big thing if you got all miffed because I wouldn't tell you and never talked to me again."

It would certainly make his life a lot less awkward if that happened, too.

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

...

She cracked up laughing.

"It'd totally take more than that to put me off talking to someone."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

And now the cute bouncy blonde girl was even laughing at something he'd said. A lot.

This was just surreal. This was possibly more surreal than Summer's whole Oh, yeah, you're in the future there, big boy bit.

And Cal had no idea how to respond to something like this, so all he gave was a small, thoughtful sounding, "Huh."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[intraspective]

She grinned at him again, still giggling. "You'll do fine," Ino said confidently, "I know it."

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Everyone keeps telling me that," Cal observed, a bit warily because, God. Giggling. He hoped that it didn't turn out that he was just acting like a complete idiot and she had actually been laughing at him the whole time. "It makes me worried about where I'd be if that wasn't the case..."