sunshineverse | Along came a spider

Who: Ami and Masanori
When: Backdated to December
Where: Under a tree not far from Team Shisui's usual training ground.

Really, in retrospect it had been a poor idea to stay so close, but after years of being a social outcast Ami had come to expect a certain amount of shunning and negligence from her peers. Or at least, the peers that weren't stupid enough to try and pick a fight with her. She had forgotten, for one crucial, inexplicable moment, that Masanori was stupid, and excessively so.

So she had stayed a little too close to the field after training, choosing to settle back against a large, heavily scarred tree as she penned her latest letter to Sephiroth. It had been disappointing, getting the news that the Chuunin Exam was not an option for the team this cycle, and Ami would be lying if she said that the host site wasn't a large part of why she had hoped to attend.

She shook her head with a soft sigh and signed her name, setting the letter aside for a moment to pack up the rest of her stationary and equipment. She would post it, along with the ribbons, on her way home.

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"For the moment," Ami decided. She blinked slowly at the prompt return of her letter, and carefully put it away in the bag at her hip. That hadn't been her immediate intention, however, and she once again extended her hand. Her index and middle fingers were ever so slightly bent ahead of her ring finger and pinky, if he looked close. In short, it was one of the most grudging and pathetic Seals of Reconciliation ever offered. But it was offered all the same.

Ami knew she would get nowhere fast if she allowed herself to view her teammates with the same deeply entrenched sense of enmity as her former classmates, so she was trying as best she could to...

Well, to not follow her instincts.

Grudging and pathetic was right. Despite his critical eye, Masanori had initially missed the sign altogether. It was a grievous oversight he would be sure to reflect upon later, but evidently not damning enough for the girl's persistence. That was curious, surprising, unexpected enough to give him the slightest pause. Why was it so unexpected? He pulled his mind quickly from the question, filing it in a mental folder to draw when he was perched in relative safety. More immediately, he had to decide whether or not he would return that gesture, not that there was much of a choice.

That was realized in the next instant.

Pushing himself up and dusting himself off, he held her gaze. Then, his hands remembered his fingers and his fingers remembered the pose somewhat less grudgingly, but only somewhat. This was where his path had led him and he hadn't strolled long enough to decide whether or not it required some changing. Any forest had many, but for now --

"Strange," he said, and more to himself than Ami with an odd little smile.

She closed the distance between them and curled her fingers over his, holding the seal for the one-two-three beat you were supposed to. She had never lingered that long with any of her classmates post-spar, but that was because she really had no interest whatsoever in reconciling with the brats that had teased or ignored her for years. Shizuoka Masanori was... infuriating, and flippant, and ridiculous and a thousand other things.

But he wasn't her enemy. Not yet, and hopefully not ever.

"Strange?" She tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowing. "What is?" She wasn't sure she wanted to hear that from a boy like him. If anything, he was the strangest person here. And that included the large spider riding in his hood.

Miourugumo had indeed taken the liberty of returning to his hood. For all that Masanori enjoyed flaunting his companion, and he did more so in the perceivable safety of the presence of his team, she was not a creature particularly inclined toward unnecessary spotlights. Masanori on the other hand --

A shake of his head was the response, his smile something decent in size, but not quite taunting and far from sinister. A change in subject was in order.

"'Abomination'?" That was the question of the moment.

Ami actually grimaced at that, her mask of indifference shattered by the aggravated wince that stole across her face. She didn't like thinking about that particular aspect of the letter normally, let alone explaining it to other people. Her aunt thought Sephiroth's doting on the doll was a cute way of teasing her, her uncle was often just as fanatic with the shop mannequins, and her cousin had elected to reserve judgment on the issue.

"...something I sent to my—friend," she stumbled briefly over the word, unused to using it but moderately certain it applied to him, foreign jounin or not. "I had hoped he would destroy it for me, but he has apparently opted to maintain it with... unsettling care."

She puffed her cheeks out in a reflexive pout, before she could think better of it.

Well, that was unexpected. And rather amusing or so was his thought as he processed that shattered indifference, the aggravated wince, and the puffing cheeks. The puffing cheeks really stole the show, though.

"Haa! You should always destroy your own things," he replied, pausing. "I guess you must trust him a lot, though, if you asked him to do it."

Which made said 'friend' that much more a curiosity. Ami didn't seem the trusting type, after all.

"It..." She visibly hesitated. "It looks... too much like me." She mumbled out the last part, shoulders inching up defensively as she buried her face in her high collar. "It felt—" too ominous "—wrong to do the deed myself. I didn't think he would get attached."

Certainly not to the extent that her had, at least.

"I... do," she said, and if her voice faltered, the shy, warm certainty shining in her eyes certainly didn't.

Edited 2015-02-24 21:09 (UTC)

A so-called Abomination that looked too much like Ami? Masanori puzzled a moment over what it could be. A piece of artwork commissioned by some creepy stalker client maybe? In any case, his attention was drawn rather pointedly back for Ami's rather odd behavior. Her body language was different and that look in her eye was worthy of a long stare and a slowly lifted hand placed to the back of her head.

Was she sick or was this guy worthy of concern?

Along came a spider

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