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Haruno Sakura ([info]goodwithscalpel) wrote in [info]last_stretch,
@ 2009-10-04 03:35:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:closed log, sakura, shino

done!; closed log;
Who: Sakura, Shino, Lit Class full of NPCs
What: The hard science kids hiding in the back of the class while the lit majors pontificate all over the place in the front. Also, there's a spider, and Sakura's geeky past comes to light.
Where: Literature Class, in whatever college we are, Jesus.
When: Friday, October 2nd


She wasn't bored at all, you see. Boredom had nothing to do with why her foot tapped against the floor. It was Friday. Last class of the week. She was already envisioning that warm bath she'd subject herself to, and the cup of tea right before sleeping a bit. To be in time for her first day at Naruto's place. In all honesty, she was nervous about it. By the end of October, she had every intention of telling her parents that she was a big girl who'd take her own decisions and if they didn't like them, they could suck it.

So, the class wasn't at fault at all, it was her mind going at 1000 miles per hours, analysing all possibilities of the nearby future, while still paying attention to what the professor droned out to them. Back at the end of the classroom, it was a question of either straining her ears or buying the book from which the professor took his notes. But Sakura was in a pinch anyway, so straining her ears it was. She was grateful that she at least had a quiet benchmate like Shino. He didn't fall asleep in class and then ask for her notes, at least.

Letting out a small huff, Sakura tapped her pen against her notepad twice before staring to write.

The symbolism in Byron's third piece is--


(Post a new comment)


[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-04 04:04 am UTC (link)
Biochemistry was a cake-walk compared to sitting through a literature class. And biochemistry was not an easy science. It was one of those 'keep your mind agile at every second and actually write things down' courses that from time to time could leave even formidable scientific brains reeling from time to time.

Literature classes, however, were simply dreadful.

It was a small comfort knowing that the pink-haired girl tapping away next to him was also not strictly of the literary persuasion. The thought of being absolutely alone in a room full of literature majors made Shino's skin crawl unlike any multi-legged creature ever had. It wasn't that they were particularly bad people; it was the way they nodded along to the absolutely incoherent murmurings of the tired professor babbling incoherently in the front of the room. Really, what did it matter that in the third passage of a dry old set of work the author had intended trees to symbolize-- what did the trees symbolize? Wrinkling his nose just a little in the slightest expression of concentration, the Aburame paused in the middle of his exhaustive notes, lifting a single finger to absently flip over another page in the unduly large but thankfully annotated text, searching for some sort of clue as to what on earth the trees could possibly be other than, well, trees.

The shriek caught his attention much more than any of the droning had, despite its occasional spikes of note. Blinking once, Shino glanced up from the book toward the row in front of him, where one of the delicately prepared young women who frequented classes such as this one seemed to be on the verge of a fit of hysterics. He needed to lift his hand again, bumping his glasses back into place, before he could see what all the fuss was about.

What the beautiful little Agelena opulenta was doing wandering across her scrawling notes was completely unknown to him, but the familiar sight brought the barest hint of a smile to the corners of his lips.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-04 04:19 am UTC (link)
Sakura lifted her head at the same time as her 'neighbour' but with different intentions. She was fully prepared to shush down whoever had shrieked, because she had been close to deschyphering why trees could possibly symbolize death when they were the epitome of long lasting life. And then she saw it.

The spider crawling over her classmate's notes. Agelena opulenta, a really nice speciment too. The sight took her back to her childhood, back when she spent her lonely days in her grandmother's garden, searching for bugs to build her stories with. The reason she knew its name, aside from it being very common in Japan, was the book her mother had given her as a child. First entomology for kids, zoology for children, anatomy when she was fifteen; she'd pretty much remained a fan of anatomy more than anything, but she still knew the names of most bugs and arachnides, simply because of her memory and her curiosity as a child.

She was broken out of her reverie when she saw the 'victim's benchmate roll up a pile of paper, ready to smack it down. "Wait," she spoke before she could help herself, jumping up in her chair. "That's--it's not going to harm you, it's just a web-weaving spider," she explained to the classmate, who by now was giving her looks of 'why don't you just let me kill it'. Since the whole class had stopped because of the girl's hysterics anyway, Sakura didn't feel as guilty when she stepped out of her bench and next to the girl's bench.

"It's called Agelena opulenta," she murmured, putting her hand on the table and holding it out. The spider crawled up on on her forefinger, and Sakura helped it up with her middle finger until it safely ended up in her palm. Fully aware of the stares she was getting from everyone, she went over to the open window, and gently deposited the spider on the outer window sill, before closing the window behind it.

"I'm sorry for the interruption, sensei," she said then, turning around to bow at the class politely, before taking her seat again.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-04 05:27 am UTC (link)
There were a variety of ways to feel about the moment. Running the gamut emotionally was a strange experience for the young man. First there was the brief moment of absolute zen (barely a flicker in the back of his eyes) at seeing the small beautiful creature, then a second of terror (both corners of his lips pulling back just a millimeter) followed by an absolute torrent of rage (the cinching together of his eyebrows) at the off-handed treatment of the innocent funnel-weaver. It was the sort of moment where he was prompted to move with little forethought, to simply lunge forward.

But Sakura seemed perfectly willing to do that for him.

It sent a whole new spiral of emotions fluttering through Shino's already battered system. There was a moment of surprise (a delicate parting of his lips) as the girl threw herself into the situation, a brief flicker of shock (a slightly more noticeable slacking of his lower jaw) as the technical scientific name rolled easily off her tongue, and something that could have been a quiet joy but was likely just a reactionary confusion (the closing of his lips and slight tilt of his head to the left) as the valiant 'knight in shining armour' rescued the 'damsel in distress' of being squished under a pile of notes on Byron.

It felt very literary to have emotions in such rapid succession.

As Sakura slid back into her seat, Shino couldn't help taking the moment of continual stunned silence to examine the girl with a quiet new sense of respect. There was the hint of a smile around the edges of his lips, a sort of relaxing in his shoulder blades as he contemplated the girl's profile over the top of his glasses before his eyes (although not his attention) dropped back to the pages in front of him because staring was really rather rude.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-04 05:33 am UTC (link)
She noticed her -- what was Shino, really? Acquaintance? Friend? Classmate? -- she noticed him looking at her from the corner of her eyes as she sat down, and leaned slightly to the side to whisper, once the class was back to its usuall humming of students' pens on paper and the drone of the professor.

"Can't let something innocent die because of the ignorance of some people, can we?" she murmured, high enough for his ears. He'd studied Darwin, he'd studied sciences, he was one of her own; he's get it. "Terrible thing to the ecosystem. No spiders, no silk, and a lot of infested gardens."

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-04 06:44 am UTC (link)
Sakura wasn't someone he spoke with on a regular basis, apart from off-handed communications about assignments for biology classes and the occasional polite little conversations in passing. The class period also wasn't a time when he typically spoke in almost any sort of capacity--he rarely offered to speak or present and was almost never tempted to speak in sidebar with any of his classmates.

For once, in this moment of quiet bonding, this absolute extension of obvious friendship (because who else in this room could truly appreciate what the Haruno girl had just done? there weren't even other biology majors that he could see to understand the quiet magnitude of the moment), Shino wanted to say something. All that came to mind was to tilt his head in just a little more, to let his face stay soft and receptive as she spoke to him. When she finished, his lips parted in a purely human reaction, the desire to reply, to give back, to connect over something with another warm-blooded mammal.

Instead of something witty, he flashed a quiet smile and offered in his typical monotone, "...they can't all be ladybugs."

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-04 11:59 am UTC (link)
She grinned at that before ducking her head and returning to her notes. The professor continued droning on about Byron, and Sakura continued to write on about the symbolism of trees.

Five minutes later, she clucked her tongue, and because for some reason her stunt with the spider-saving seemed to have won an ally in Shino (who'd never really talked to her beyong tea preferences or what chapter they were on), she saw it fit to clue him in on her frustration.

She ripped out a piece of paper, and wrote: How can trees symbolize death? They live more than we do, and without trees WE'd be dead, and isn't green the colour of LIFE?

She hadn't passed notes during class in ages, but there was a sort of giddiness to this moment, as she slid the piece of paper over to his desk.

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-04 03:35 pm UTC (link)
Next on the list of things Shino had never done was pass notes in class. So it was a little jarring, really, to have a piece of the notes of the girl next to him suddenly slide into his personal space, boldly cluttering the clean line of the edge of his books. He took a minute to process it before he could even begin to read the note, a slow and hesitant process as he continued to strain himself to bend his mind around both deciphering the cryptology of the professor's vocabulary and the mythology of whatever it was Byron meant to be saying with the trees of death.

In the slow methodical fashion that he did many things, with a much more bemused expression on his face than the habitual blank slate, the young Aburame shifted his hand away from his notes briefly to print in his tiny neat handwriting just beneath Sakura's note.

If it's not chlorophyll, I think it's meant to symbolize sickness. Our textbook has a green cover.

Point hopefully well-made, he reasoned quietly as he slid the piece of paper back to his benchmate.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-04 03:41 pm UTC (link)
Sakura read the note quickly, and couldn't help the snort from coming out. She wrote her reply quickly and tossed it back over.

Am I to understand this class makes you sick? Or just Byron?

As she waited for replies, she returned to taking notes from the professor's lecture.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-04 04:09 pm UTC (link)
Were snorts good? Watching the professor, trying to get at the tiniest hint of meaning out of the bland way the man was holding his face, meant that it was nearly impossible to spare a glance to study Sakura's face while she made the brief sound. A glance down at the paper again shoved across into his space hopefully indicated that the noise had been a good one.

It took a moment longer, but between tiny scribbled notes in pristine lines along the edge of his notebook he managed to jot out a quick response. It's simply an interesting correlation. If things correlate in literature.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-04 04:19 pm UTC (link)
She let out a soft laugh, and put the note in her literature book for safe keeping. That would be a legendary note, five years from this moment. Proof that Aburame Shino had passed notes in class.

With a smile on her lips, she went back to analysing the rest of the text as the professor explained how the reasoning behind Byron's obscure verses were intimately tied with his relationships in general. It was interesting, yes, but she much prefered the Russians to the British when it came to literature. In the brief moment during which the professor questioned one student for his opinion, Sakura's eyes diverted from her notebook and towards the window.

In the glint of sun light, she saw it. The spider had already made it's web in a high corner of the window, between the frame and the outer wall. Smart girl, that side of the window never gets opened.

Needing to share the information with someone, or simply because she was bored by listening to the opinions of her classmates on the meaning of red, she tore another piece of paper, and passed it on to him.

Look at the window.

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-04 09:57 pm UTC (link)
The momentary distraction of having to multitask understanding both Byron's trees and his fellow biology majors fell easily to the side as Sakura filed the note away with an exhale like a laugh. Without missing a beat, Shino was back into the class, leaning forward slightly as though the knowledge trickling from the front of the room would be more easily absorbed by bringing himself physically closer to the source.

As the class dragged on and he became more and more entrenched in the mire of colour theory and amorphous symbolism (he could have written an essay about trees, if only that had been acceptable, something nice about the evolution of deciduous forests that didn't mean anything because they were trees and trees simply were), he nearly missed the note that once again slipped onto his side of the desk space.

As things began to wind down, it caught his attention, his gaze finally slipping from the tenth page of tiny scribbled notes on why a bare branch represented barrenness apart from the times when it didn't. His eyebrows twitched slightly, again cinching toward the middle of his face in a barely noticeable gesture of confusion at the four words scratched across the piece of paper.

He glanced at his benchmate, then glanced at the window, squinting in confusion for a moment through his glasses before glancing uneasily back at the front of the room. Either he'd missed it or he'd have to ask about it later--it was probably a sign that he needed to get his eyes rechecked, really.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-04 10:09 pm UTC (link)
Sakura saw his confusion, and checked to see if the professor was paying attention. He wasn't. So she leaned accross her bench and scribbled an addendum to her note. Upper corner. Agelena's smart.

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-04 10:23 pm UTC (link)
Shino glanced at the addendum, then back at the front of the class. Then he glanced at the note again. It didn't make sense. A quick flick of his eyes toward the upper corner of the window, however, did in fact reveal what was likely at this point a very confused spider busily fussing about its new home.

He almost made a sound. The sound, of course, would have been a word, but the strangeness of wanting to make a sound during a class period quickly arrested the attempt. A tiny urgent part of him wanted to simply get up and go watch the tiny creature, to explain to the girl next to him that this was highly abnormal behaviour for a funnel weaver and to bring the poor confused thing down to a cool grassy area.

Instead, he simply glanced down at his watch, lips parted as though he was on the verge of saying something. In a few minutes, the lecture would end. He was good at silence. He could make it a few minutes.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-04 10:31 pm UTC (link)
She shook her head and went back to taking notes. From what she had picked up, Shino was studying entomology, so she figured he would've liked to see what had happened to the spider.

The last ten minutes passed amazingly fast, since the professor started to pick up his pace and dictate about a page's worth of notes, to make up for lost time; so Sakura's mind concentrated on the notes, rather than the wild life.

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-04 10:49 pm UTC (link)
As the last words left the professor's lips and the last words were printed onto the sheets of paper in his notebook, the young Aburame nearly reached over for his benchmate. He still wasn't a fan particularly of physical human interaction, but he did manage to catch the edge of the girl's sleeve in what was distinctly a little pluck requesting attention.

Without further indication of his intentions or desire for her attention, he was up with the rest of the class, waiting politely a moment before the silence broke and the general hum of students moving took over the classroom. With a quick but somehow neat little motion, he swept all his books back into his satchel and leaned around his smaller classmate to peer properly at the small arachnid.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-04 11:06 pm UTC (link)
Sakura was just noting down the last bit of homework for the following week, when she noted that tug of her sleeve, which made her lift her head to look at him. Just in time to watch him rise with the rest of their classmates.

Her eyes still on him, Sakura packed all her things into her backpack, her head slightly tilted to the side, as if she was analysing something very, very peculiar. Little Sakura, or what still remained of Little Sakura in Sakura's mind (that girl that loved everything that got her clothes dirty, like climbing trees and making mudpies and picking up worms), felt her curiosity pique at this weird boy--young man--in front of her.

He was peculiar. Very peculiar. Very reserved, and yet at the same time, there was something really cool about him. Calming. As if she was Little Sakura again, she observed him, like she'd observed the first bug she found really interesting.

Obviously, it came as a surpise when he leaned around her, but she realized what she was looking at, so she sat up from her seat and stood beside him, peering up.

"You're studying entomology, right?"

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-05 04:35 am UTC (link)
Leaning up toward the corner of the window, almost off the balls of his feet despite his height because of his slightly awkward angle of approach, the young entomologist found himself caught between scrunching his nose to look through his glasses and un-scrunching it to look over the top. In the end, he opted for tugging them off entirely for the moment as he studied the little spider curled up in its new corner.

It meant that glancing over his shoulder when the girl spoke up again resulted in a slightly hazy view of her pink-framed face, but that hardly mattered. He could see the Agelena opulenta clearly, and that was the much more fascinating thing at the moment.

{Although, his mind admitted quietly to itself, it was vaguely fascinating that there was a girl in the universe who fit snugly into the diverse categories of (1) being someone he could talk to, (2) being someone who saved insects rather than squishing them, and (3) being someone really rather aesthetically appealing of the opposite gender. That, however, could be set aside until he'd unraveled the mystery of the possibly more appealing 8-legged beauty in the corner of the window.)

"...when I can," he replied quietly, turning back to rest his forehead slightly against the window pane, squinting up at the fussy little web. "...they don't usually do this."

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-05 01:05 pm UTC (link)
"Don't they? Because I've seen so many of them at my grandmother's place when I was young..." she mused, lifting up her hand and brushing one finger over the window, right where the spider was.

"I never learned farther than that Bugs for Kids book mom gave me when I was seven, though, so you're the expert. What do we do?"

It was kind of exciting, really. Like an adventure.

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-05 01:32 pm UTC (link)
There was the slightest moment of hesitation. This wasn't really a side of himself Shino tended to share freely with other people, strangely enough. As much as it was something amazingly true about him (and Shino wasn't particularly one to put on faces for the world), the rather childish scars of his communal education ran somehow a good deal deeper than the extensive acid burns circling his arms (another thing he wasn't about to go shouting from the rooftops). True, it was good to be 'that guy who wasn't afraid to catch spiders when all the girls were screaming their heads off,' but 'that guy who caught spiders because he liked making friends with them?'

It always felt like pushing the envelope a little far.

True, however, this was college, and this was a fellow biology major who seemed to be taking a keen interest in the life of this particular spider and banking on his expertise in entomology. It did set things a little more at ease. "...she should be making a funnel web," he explained in his even quiet monotone with a slight shake of his head. "Something low, along the grassline. It's unlikely she'll be able to feed herself with that. If..."

He had to slide his glasses back on to glance around the room. There had to be something soothing; a jar, a mug, even just a scrap of paper.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-05 01:44 pm UTC (link)
Sakura listened to him, then followed his line of sight before realizing what he was looking for. She held out her hands again.

"Do you think these'll do? I always used to do this, pick all crawlies from grandmother's house and take them to the garden when I was young. And trust me, they had a big garden, so...lot of crawlies. But I know how to keep them in my hands..." she explained, then paused. Blushing slightly, because it wasn't really usual for a girl to confess to having done those sort of things, she clarified.

"For the good of the species, and lack of transportation material."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-05 01:58 pm UTC (link)
Maybe this weird little twist in his stomach as he blinked through the top of his glasses at the pink-haired girl holding out her hands for a funnel spider was love. More than likely it was the sheerest confusion he'd ever felt in his life. At least the confusion came from the fact that she seemed to be absolutely earnest in her intentions.

The left half of his lips quirked just a little.

"Do you have some paper or a tissue, maybe? They don't particularly enjoy... touching." With another glance at the spider, Shino carefully began jimmying the window back open. They'd have to lean out a little awkwardly to get her down, but it wouldn't be the hardest thing either of them had ever accomplished.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-05 02:01 pm UTC (link)
"Oh, yeah," she said, and dug into her bag for a paper tissue. She held that in her mouth, and picked up the chair from her table, propping it under the window. "Ish a bi high," she mumbled around the tissue, before catching herself.

She picked it in her hands again, and brushed her hair behind her ears before looking up. "You're taller, you should..."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-05 02:20 pm UTC (link)
With the slightest of nods, Shino easily slipped his taller torso out of the window, peering over the tops of his glasses at the little beauty in her tangled web. They were fast little arachnids--they had to be, given their typical web design--but she wasn't the first he'd ever encountered. It was a careful, obviously practiced motion, both hands lifting to close around the spider carefully, not touching the web until the very last second.

Once the precious cargo was safely secured (although skittering about a little unhappily in his hands), the entomologist moved himself carefully back into the room, arms slightly awkward as he attempted to keep the disturbed arachnid as still as possible.

"...ready for her?"

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-05 02:22 pm UTC (link)
Sakura spread the tissue over her palms, and cupped them together around it, holding her hands out for him. "Ready."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-05 07:18 pm UTC (link)
The little Agelena opulenta seemed to calm almost instantly when placed in the young woman's hands, obviously pleased to be an environment dulled of the scent and feel of another living creature it didn't understand. With a definitive nod toward the door, Shino continued his previous thought.

"If you take her down to somewhere outside, a park, that sort of thing, she should be fine." There was a half-second pause as he readjusted his bag where it had come loose from the rescue efforts. With the hint of a smile at the left side of his lips, he added, "...thanks."

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-05 07:21 pm UTC (link)
She gave him a look before looking down to make sure the spider was okay. "Don't thank me just yet, you're in charge of carrying my backpack and making sure I don't bump into anyone. I've to keep an eye on the spider to make sure she doesn't get away or anything."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-06 03:19 pm UTC (link)
"...for caring," he continued easily, as though simply finishing the thought. Without any hesitation Shino shifted his own bag to make room on his shoulder for Sakura's. A different person might have put a hand on her shoulder to guide her. Like a spider, however, the Aburame was hardly a fan of touching.

With a calm polite expression on his face, the young entomologist nodded toward the door before slipping around to hold it open for her. There was a grassy patch not far from the exit of this building; they could make it there in a matter of minutes.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-06 09:12 pm UTC (link)
She could've answered that, of course, but she decided not to. To be honest, she wasn't sure what had impulsed her to rescue the spider from her classmate's hands--maybe it was because she'd always hated seeing smaller beings get bullied by larger beings, or maybe she just couldn't stand those stuck-up Literature majors, or maybe it was an instant flashback to her childhood--but what was done was done, and she was here now. Spider in hand, or tissue, and walking down the hallways of the university.

She ignored the stares they were getting from most people, and glanced at Aburame at her side. "Say, Aburame-san..." she started, pausing slightly. God, it's not like you're in high school anymore, Sakura. "You can call me Sakura, if you want."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-06 10:45 pm UTC (link)
They must have looked like quite the pair, Shino with two mismatched bags and Sakura with her hands full of tissue and spider, both slipping carefully down the hall toward freedom on a Friday afternoon. Someone image conscious might have been uncomfortable. Then again, someone image conscious probably wouldn't have spent their afternoon saving a spider like this.

The words caught him a little off-guard as he slipped ahead again (a person didn't realize how many doors were in a building until he or she had to open all of them for someone else). As with most words that caught him off-guard, it took him a minute to process them.

"...not if you're going to call me 'Aburame-san.'"

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-06 10:55 pm UTC (link)
"I wasn't planning to, Shino-san. Whether you liked it or not," she answered, stopping to wink at him. Then she crossed that open door, and the other and the other.

She heard the whispers and felt the stares at the back of her head. This whole situation brought her back to high school, or middle school, when acting strange or not being part of a homogeneous group made you stand out and consequently be ostracized by your classmates. She caught the closest person to them who seemed to be about to make a teasing comment and directed her deadliest glare to them. That had immediate effect. Mouth zipped shut instantly.

Sakura then gave them her sweetest and most dangerous smile, before carrying on her way. Nothing to see, nothing to see.

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-08 04:26 pm UTC (link)
She was vaguely enigmatic. Shino ought to have understood her properly--she was a girl who had been kicked in the shins before and felt justified in throwing dirt back in the faces of bullies. It should have been obvious from the reaction to the spider, but it took the quiet smile in the hallway to solidify in his mind.

She was nevertheless vaguely an enigma to him. There was something unexpected about her, perhaps the way things like this popped up. Had he been asked at the beginning of the day, or the beginning of class, or even simply a few minutes before the incident with the hysterical lit students, Shino would certainly not have guessed that he would be spending the beginning of his evening off bonding with the pink-haired girl he tended to know is passing more than anything else.

Outside, plans came back into action. "...over there. Where it's sheltered."

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-08 04:54 pm UTC (link)
She knew the place well enough to know where the grass was higher and which part of the green area was used by less students. It wasn't spy work or anything as complicated; she just liked to note down little details like those. No-one was more aware of how complicated she could be deep down than Sakura herself.

That, however, was beside the point. The point was that, after one whole year of college, it was in her second year through pre-med that she was quite probably making the first friend in class. She knew other people and had other friends in other majors, but this was an unique oportunity, simply for the fact that it could mean some of her classes wouldn't be as lonely as before. Or at least biochem. She'd have to sit down next to him more often. Maybe not for passing notes during the class, but simply for the fact of having shared an adventure like this with him. There had to be some sort of connection that had formed itself after this. Right?

Sakura stopped on the pavement right before the grass, and kneeled down. "You know," she said, aware that he was listening because he was still there. "Twenty years from now, when the radiation hits and they all turn gigantic, I like to think that you and I will be spared."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-08 06:37 pm UTC (link)
There it was, the enigma again.

Shino didn't quite smile. He'd smiled quite a lot in their conversation thus far, and it wasn't so much that his muscles were sore as that it as that he'd simply used up his quota for the moment of things which were really worth the effort to break his usual calm exterior.

"...just for this?" It was easy to deal with sarcasm when you were an Aburame. Deadpan came very easy and naturally with the basic neutrality which came so easily to their clan. He shifted the bags on his shoulders slightly, preparing to hand Sakura's back when she was done fussing.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-08 06:57 pm UTC (link)
"We'll just save more, then," she answered, letting the arachnid crawl out of her hand and into the grass before standing up again.

"And maybe we'll be named unofficial members of their alliance, or..." she mused as she took her bag back. Then laughed slightly and rubbed her note, embarrassed. "Mm, getting too much into this fantasy."

Her eyes fell down to the grass again--she couldn't see her, but she knew that something good had come out of this--before looking back up. "That was fun, wasn't it?" she asked, nudging him softly in the shoulder. "We should celebrate."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-08 07:08 pm UTC (link)
That got a reaction. It wasn't another smile, but it was certainly a reaction. The first comment got a slightly bemused expression onto his face (something like a slight head-tilt and tiny pursing of his lips), while the unnecessary little point of contact brought a very slight tension to his shoulders.

It was the sort of reaction he'd always had, even to involuntary touching. When his father absentmindedly reached over to smooth his hair, it was fine. When a stranger brushed passed him on the street, it felt invasive.

"Celebrate relocating a spider?"

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-08 07:11 pm UTC (link)
She raised an eyebrow at that. Twitchy around touch, or was it just her? She shook her head. "Relocating a spider, interrupting Literature class to give them a lesson in what really symbolizes life, having talked more than half an hour, and oh--"

She smiled.

"You, passing notes."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-08 07:14 pm UTC (link)
...oh. That.

Something like a sheepish look creept over his face, shoulders softening again as he tilted his head away from her with an apologetic twitch of his lips. As much as the first few things were silly and amazingly friendly things, the last stung just a little, most likely unintentionally.

"That's not really something to celebrate."

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-08 07:16 pm UTC (link)
"Oh, it is. It's like the beginning of a new friendship," she corrected him. "All Casablancaish."

She paused. "Except I'm not going to shoot you, and I really have no-one to whom I can promise to always have Paris, but that's irrelevant," she concluded, waving her hand dissmissively. "Anyway, do you like muffins?"

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-08 07:29 pm UTC (link)
It was a nice reminder as to exactly why Shino had been confused by girls since a very young age. The only kiss he'd ever had, the moments of thinking that maybe there really was something to the idea of following a girl around like a puppy dog; they all fell back into perspective at times like this. Sakura was, obviously, lovely and charming and easy to be around, but really, at the bottom of it all, girls were amazingly difficult to understand.

"...muffins."

Repeating the word helped with processing the situation. He shifted his own bag again to shoot a glance at his watch. It wasn't that he had anywhere particular to be, but the instinct to keep track of something like time helped deal with the madness which was spending more than a few moments with a female counterpart.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-08 07:34 pm UTC (link)
"Don't say no?" she begged, resorting to the last resort: The Face. Puppy eyes, pout on her mouth, and one slow bat of her eyelashes.

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-08 07:41 pm UTC (link)
"I don't understand where the question is coming from."

Which was really the hard part about the conversation. Shino had followed most of it--Casablanca, celebrations, saving arachnids. Where the muffins came from, however, didn't seem to make any sort of sense.

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-08 07:46 pm UTC (link)
"I...like muffins?" she tried, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't know. I've nothing to do this evening except for going home and napping, I'm craving something sweet, and you're...nice to be around. So I extended the invitation."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-08 08:23 pm UTC (link)
It was still a little confusing. Shino took a moment to decipher, flipping verbs and rearranging the past few minutes into something intelligible. At least he was getting better at doing this quickly.

"...sure."

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[info]goodwithscalpel
2009-10-08 08:25 pm UTC (link)
"Really?!"

That grin that followed was big enough to take control of her face. "Great! I know a place."

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[info]strongsilentype
2009-10-08 08:38 pm UTC (link)
There was something like a smile back at the corners of his lips as Shino nodded with a slightly reluctant tilt of his head. Time to give this friendship thing a try, then.

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