fandomhigh | The Library; Monday [ 10/20 ]

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The Library; Monday [ 10/20 ]

Cal realized that he could only convince himself that he wasn't really nervous for so long. All his efforts came crashing down when he managed to spill his coffee all over the desk and, in the scramble to clean it up, hit his head soundly from underneath, and then fell backwards only to smack his head against the wall as well.

And then, when he sat down, the chair fell out from underneath him.

Actually, once he finally did manage to sit down, button up his jacket in hopes to cover most of the coffee stain, and then cleaned up the desk, he told himself that maybe it wasn't nervousness after all at all! Fandom Weirdness! That had to be it! It was just Fandom giving him a bad, bad...really bad morning...

He let out a little groan, knowing he couldn't just hide under the desk, and waited for the oppression of his fate to just weigh him down completely and crush him.

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Cal lifted his eyes from his book to stare at Ino for a moment, unsure whether he was glad it could be done and over with, or if he was annoyed because he had almost no prep time to go and try to find out how to work his way out of this. He blinked, and then his eyes went to the muffin. He put a marker in his book, setting it on the desk as he straightened up from where he was leaning back in his chair.

"Blueberry's good," he admitted. If it was chocolate chip, he was likely to choke on one of the chips, considering how the rest of his morning was going so far. "Thanks."

That got a bit of a sheepish shrug. "No problem," Ino said, snagging a oatmeal-raisin muffin from the bag and contemplating where to sit. "I mean, really, it's rude to eat if the other person isn't eating too, you know? And, well, I was hungry."

"Oh, I see," Cal commented, with a nervous attempt at humor. "Here I thought you were just being nice to me, but, no, you just didn't want to be rude."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "I was being both," Ino informed him. "Not one or the other, okay?"

"Okay," Cal nodded, easily conceding the point because he didn't exactly want to start anything with Ino. Not right now. Not today. He reached into the bag to get the muffin that awaited him, setting it on the desk, next to where his coffee mug had spilled. He picked a little piece off to stick into his mouth, chewing it methodically, purely for show. He wasn't hungry; in fact, now that she was here and he was thinking about what he was planning on showing her, he was the opposite of hungry. He felt sick, in a way that introducing anything sweet like a muffin could spell disaster. But it was his turn not to be rude, by trying to eat at least a little bit, and, besides, if he didn't, he'd have to admit to Ino how he felt right now.

Maybe he could still get out of it; maybe that was the trick, and she wouldn't make him if he was sick.

"That's right," Ino said. "No disbelieving that."

She eyed him while nibbling on her own muffin and pulling up a seat so that she could flop down in it and contemplate the wonders of hot chocolate first thing in the morning.

"I am," Cal pronounced, discretely pulling away another tiny crumb of the muffin, "utterly and completely convinced." And then he chewed that crumb for probably longer than it needed to be chewed, ruminating with the mastication, and thinking that this was fine. How about they skip the whole thing and just sit here and eat muffins all day? He liked that plan. That was a plan that could work nicely.

That was an awful plan, and Ino was eating her muffin faster than he was.

"So..."

Graceful entries into possibly bad conversations were not Ino's forte.

[*SOBS* XD ]

"So..."

There was a long pause.

"How's the weather out there?"

"Coldish," she said, eyeing him more now, "and I'm fine, slept well, classes should be going good, work is the same as always, and all that stuff."

Edited 2008-10-20 14:07 (UTC)

Oh, she thought she had him there, didn't she, covering all the topics of any small talk he could use to hold off the inevitable.

"And," he offered, "your training with Fanbutt?"

That could buy him at least a little more.

"That falls under 'all that stuff'," Ino said, almost amused by that. "It's going... okay."

"Only okay?"

Like he wasn't going to seize the chance to milk it for whatever he could.

"It's going fine," she said, edging towards exasperated. "And no, I don't feel like going into details just 'cause you don't want to talk."

"But I do want to talk!" Cal said, with a tone of light insistence. "That's why I asked!"

He just didn't want to talk about what Ino knew he was going to talk about.

"No," she said, trying to keep from snapping, "you wanted me to come in so we could talk about something that needed honesty and reasonable discussion. If I wanted to tell you about my week I'd have waited 'til I could bug you at work and get food out of it as well."

With another bite of her muffin.

Cal sucked in a breath. "Fine, fine," he said. "You're right. Honest. To the point. Blah blah blah. Still wouldn't kill you to at least spend a bit of time with me..."

He stood up from his chair, sighing again, and started heading around the desk. "Come on. Let's at least get it over with. For all I know, it might all be in my head and you won't even blink a damn eye like Fanbutt."

"Cal," she said, and this time less snappish, "I do like spending time with you. But not when you're obviously avoiding the subject."

...

"...you told Temari-san." Blankly. Give her a few seconds, she needed to process that.

It was only then that Cal realized exactly what he had said, and he winced. He cocked his head toward the direction they were going, into the bookshelves. "I didn't tell," he said, "her anything. She figured it out her own damn self, with a big fat whopping load of help from Fandom Weirdness."

To that, he threw a big middle finger at...whatever part of the island would graciously receive it. Thanks a lot, Island.

She got up, almost mechanically. "But she knew before me."

And that, well, that hurt.

A lot.

And Cal wasn't so dense that he couldn't sense the hurt in Ino's voice. He did, however, know that there wasn't anything he could do about it. Really, he shouldn't have said anything at all in the first place, so, as if that could help anything, he didn't say anything more now, just drifting forward into the right section of the library, hands in his pockets.

"It's not easy for me, you know," he finally said, quietly. "Having anyone know."

She shrugged, a bit irritably, still out of sorts that once again she was the last one everyone's list.

"Then don't," she said, staring at her feet. "You said you would, back out of it. Tell me to fuck off. If it's so freakin' bad, then don't. But you told Amber, and Temari-san found out, and I like to think I'm somewhat important to you as a friend and... I don't think, knowing that I come last, and that you can't tell me, that I could keep being your friend. I'd pry, I'd push, I'd spy. You'd end up hating me, if I stayed."

"I want to know. If you don't, then tell me to piss off and I'll stop talking to you."

Edited 2008-10-20 21:00 (UTC)

To that, after a moment's pause as if letting all of Ino's words settle in, Cal had only one thing to say, "I asked you here, didn't I?"

Besides, she wasn't the last to know. Not by a longshot.

"You did," she said, looking up at him. "But the way you're acting... doesn't sound like you want to let me know."

"Because a guy totally has to be completely black and white on topics," Cal muttered. "We said we were going to start being more honest with each other, right? Maybe I don't really want you to know if you don't have to, but then I'm not being honest."

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