Strokes of Genius, Wednesday

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

So far, Katchoo didn't feel like this week had much going for it; having the cashier at J,GoB screw up her order this morning hadn't done much to improve the trend. So she was grumbling and a few minutes late (which Clocky, following along behind her, kept reminding her) by the time she got to the store with a bag of assorted danishes, and coffee in a thermal flask.

It wasn't as if the grumbling was a surprise or anything though, now, was it?

Buying a couple of new sketchbooks made her feel a little better, at least, to say nothing of taking pencils to one of them seconds later.

[OOC: Seems like OCD never comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge. Or in here.]

Comments

[thatsamilkshake]

At least there was, eventually, a Francine pushing the door open? A quiet Francine, but one who gave her a real smile, not a forced-to-be-cheerful one, when she made her way over to the counter. "Hey."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Yes, there was that, and it made things a lot better right off, especially when 'points for effort' didn't mean 'I can tell you're working to keep up that smile.'

"Morning, ray of sunshine," Katchoo said as lightly as she could. She wasn't awake yet; she didn't care what time it was, it was morning under those circumstances. "I seem to have usurped your breakfast-bringing job today."

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine smiled a little brighter. "Sort of?" She set a small bag of cookies on the counter. "I made some for the magic user reserves, so..."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Francie? Let me let you in on a little secret," Katchoo said once she'd peeked into the back, then looked up to beckon Francine closer, conspiratorially. "Cookies aren't actually breakfast."

Was that heresy? It might be.

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine's mouth dropped open. "KatCHOO! You take that back!"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

A tiny little snort with overtones bearing a suspicious resemblance to giggling escaped Katchoo. "You mean you've believed that, all this time? Geez, Francine, who's been telling you these things?"

[thatsamilkshake]

"God, Katchoo. God says that cookies are breakfast, or he wouldn't have made them taste so good with milk."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Doofus," Katchoo said fondly, and sandwiched a piece of cheese danish between two cookies just to make up for scandalizing Francine. "What, you have tea with God in the afternoons or something?"

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine giggled. "I think God has better things to do than spend time with me."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Always knew there was something wrong with him, then," Katchoo scoffed. "Men."

Instinctive response? Yeah. Best thing to say? Maybe not.

[thatsamilkshake]

"I'll just be stepping back from the lightning, now," Francine said, pretending to look around for a bolt from above.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Eh, that happens, we'll let Clocky take it." Katchoo waved her cookie-and-danish sandwich dismissively and took a bite.

[thatsamilkshake]

"Poor thing. What did he ever do?" Francine reached for a danish herself.

[intraspective]

Because bothering other people might, possibly, make her feel more settled of course Ino had to wander over during her lunch break.

"You!" she greeted.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Person who hasn't bugged me in a couple of weeks," was Katchoo's much more verbose response as she looked up from her sketchbook. "You must not have been bored."

[intraspective]

"I was on a mission," she said, with a shrug, coming in to hop up on the counter. "Hokage-sama wouldn't take 'I need to go bug a friend' as an acceptable excuse."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"People tell me that one has a slightly lower success rate than 'I seem to have misplaced my liver,' but I can't test that theory myself," Katchoo drawled, sliding her sketchbook out of the way to give Ino more room, and since when had she started being accommodating about this? "Things go okay?"

[intraspective]

Ino noticed the accommodation, and grinned slightly. "The liver one'd probably work with Hokage-sama, but you'd best not be lying if you tell her that 'cause she's the best medical ninja in the world. It went." She shrugged a bit. "Came back bruised and achy like woah, but two days rest was enough for me to get the chakra up to heal that, so it worked out fairly well. Mission accomplished and all that."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"And now you're back." While she wouldn't exactly say she was happy about that, Katchoo was . . . oddly relieved, in some vague way. "Could somebody actually do that in your world, d'you think? Misplace their liver?"

[intraspective]

"I'm back," she said, nodding. "And, um."

Uh.

". . .probably," Ino decided. "Some medics can do in-the-field eye transplants, and there's was this guy who could fight by pulling his spine out of his body and using it like a sword, so. . . a liver probably is doable. Even if misplacing it would require some sort of explanation."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Pulling . . . his spine . . . out of . . . ow. Ino might just have to bear with Katchoo for a moment or two while she got the bug-eyed look on her face under control.

"A dog ran off with it while you were distracted?"

How did she get into these bizarre-ass conversations?!? Oh, yeah. Fandom.

[intraspective]

"Maybe if it was a ninja dog," she said, tilting her head and giggling. "Some of them are as smart as we are."

Some of them could even talk.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Beat, blink, snort of mildly amused laughter. "Of course there are ninja dogs. Of course there are. The island went insane again while you were gone, by the way."

[intraspective]

"Hurley said there was something in the water," Ino shared, "and Romeo said that it made everyone more attractive?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"It made everybody go at it like rabbits facing extinction, 's what it did." The amusement in Katchoo's voice was a touch twisted, and she flicked idly at the keyring hanging from the cash register key. "Or if not, sure as hell wasn't for lack of trying."