Montague-Dojima Apartment, Tokyo, Tuesday Daytime

[withoutverona]

Romeo's college required he take a business ethics course. It wasn't such a bad idea, really. In Verona, showing up with a few bodyguards and asking pointed questions about how attached a rival was to his cars was considered a reasonable opening salvo. He flipped through the text with a highlighter in hand, occasionally shooting worried glances at the door.

Yurika wasn't saying anything, but he could tell something at work was troubling her. A friend had died; that was as much as she'd told him, and that was worry enough.

He reread the passage on ethical hiring practices and hoped she'd be home soon.

[OOC: For the hime and calls/emails/texts.]

Comments

[the_merriest]

"You bet!" she bounced, excitedly. "Romeo! Howfore art thou? Okay, I suck at fancy-talk. Hey!!!"

[intraspective]

"Ewwww," she laughed. "You sound like a grown-up! And--I know, I guess. I think I just want something useful right now, if that makes any sense? Even if I know I'll have a chance later."

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Mmmm... I might have met a Montague or two," Yurika teased. "Right now, my pleasure is lunch, but after that..."

[withoutverona]

Romeo took a moment to respond, as he got caught up in trying to decide if 'howfore' was a word in any dialect he knew.

"Hello hello," he said, as he decided on 'not, but not worth mentioning.' "I'm well and studying business ethics. How are you?"

[withoutverona]

"Anything but that," Romeo laughed. "May I ask you for a favor, though?"

[the_merriest]

"I'm okay," Rikku said. "I've been organizing. We're having a big conference-thing here soon, and people are actually gonna show up and pretend they can get along, isn't that great?!"

They weren't particularly happy about it, but that was okay, because she was five minutes away from slapping them around like the whiny little brats they were. So long as they pretended to be nice, she didn't have to get scary. Woo!

[intraspective]

"You can ask," she said easily. "I'll tell you if I'll do it afterwards."

[withoutverona]

He dropped noodles into the water, then leaned in to kiss her. "Back to work?" he asked, teasing.

[withoutverona]

Romeo .... didn't follow. Or, rather, he did, but he didn't understand her tone.

"Would you rather they were trying to kill each other?"

[the_merriest]

"Oh, not even," she said quickly. "I'm actually really proud of myself for getting it all together. Sorry if I sound a little high-strung? Everyone's being stupid, like usual, but if we can keep them from being too stupid, this actually might work out, like ... maybe things would start clearing up without anybody getting hurt. If we can keep a bunch of whiny jerks in line, I mean. So .... it's worth the stress, you know?"

[withoutverona]

"When giant squids attack the island, take a moment to send me an email?" Romeo requested. "A text, even. I hate that I found out a month later."

[intraspective]

Ino was, like, the world's worst correspondent.

She totally knew that.

"I'll do my best?" she said honestly. "Though I make no promises 'bout it 'cause sometimes Fandom kills signals and stuff and, honest, if it were giant squid you'd probably get a text at the end of it going 'OMG GIANT SQUID YAY'."

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Back to work eventually," she agreed, wrapping her arms around him for a good kiss. "But first some lazy time. Read your homework over your shoulder, have some popcorn, maybe drag you to bed for a nap..."

[withoutverona]

He knew it too, but she was who he had on the other end of the phone line just then.

"Your best is all I can ask," he said. "If it is OMG GIANT SQUID YAY, send a photo too?"

[intraspective]

Ino laughed at that.

"I can totally send photos," she promised, because that she could actually remember to do. "Like, before and after photos. Before: giant looming monster. After: lookit that, I kicked it's ass!"

[withoutverona]

"It's nothing I have any experience with," Romeo offered gamely. In truth, all of this was far over his head and left him more than a little uncomfortable -- there should be adults in Rukku's world to do this, shouldn't there?

"But, well, if you think it will work, then I'm happy for you ... and when are you coming out to visit again?"

[withoutverona]

"Thou hast need of business ethics?" Romeo asked, once he'd returned the kiss and then some. "I knew that not. We could talk of that fater the nap."

He was totally trying to seduce her, yep.

[withoutverona]

Romeo burst out with a laugh. "I will watch for those," he said. "Thank you for calling, Ino. I'd missed you."

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

Oh, pretty words from pretty Montagues was cheating, and he knew it!

Yurika giggled and nuzzled at his neck. "Hai," she replied. "I find knowledge very attractive, you know."

[the_merriest]

Sadly, the adults all wanted to make war. Spira was crazy like that.

"It's worth trying," she said. "I mean, I hope it is, anyway. We'll see. After this is all over -- after the conference goes down? I'm taking a huge vacation. No matter how it goes. So I'm going to catch up with everyone and party and have way too much sex with Reno."

Withdrawl sucked.

[withoutverona]

Romeo went pink at the sharing. Not that he didn't understand, he just normally didn't say it so baldly. And Rikku had always seemed uncomfortable about such topics with him.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"You have changed, do you know that? Not that I object to the particulars of your plan. I'll be glad to see you anytime; all I have is school."