Tokyo, Japan. Ueno Onshi Koen Park, Saturday Morning.

[dojima_hime]

Normally it would be a bit early in the season, but Hanami was almost in full-swing at Ueno Onshi Koen, and Yurika couldn't pass up the chance for a picnic. She'd even put on her favorite blue sakura-patterned yukata for the occasion.

"The night-viewing won't start for another few days," she said to her companions as she spread out the blanket. "But the cherry blossoms are already off to a good start, ne?"

[OOC: For the boy and the blonde ninja!]

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[intraspective]

If she pretended not to see all of the signs of a more modern city then Ino could almost pretend she was at home, for one of their Spring festivals. Even that tiny bit of wishful dreaming was comforting (because, in Tokyo, it was very hard to pretend you were anywhere other than in Tokyo) as she stared up at the blossoms.

"They're gorgeous," she said honestly, smiling at Dōjima-san and going to help with the blanket. "Like a bit of earth magic, I think."

Ino was sorta of the opinion that all flowers had a bit of magic in them, mind. She was the most biased person ever when it came to that.

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Hai!" she answered cheerfully. "Makes me wish I didn't have a black-thumb when it comes to plants. Cats I can do, Alea can howl if I forget to feed her, but plants and I seem to be cused."

[intraspective]

"Plants cry out too," she said laughingly. "But you've got to be able to understand them. Maybe your translator went missing?"

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

Dōjima made a face. "I already speak Japanese, English, French, some Italian, and Romeo," she whined. "My translator is full."

[intraspective]

"Hopefully you speak Romeo fluently," she teased. "Even if it's a dreadful shame that plants are left out in the cold because of it."

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Mostly fluently, I think," Dōjima hummed. "Although sometimes I do have to make him repeat himself. Usually before my coffee."

[withoutverona]

"What's this about speaking me fluently?" Romeo inquired. He'd been busying himself poking through their packaged bento boxes and a few additional bags of sweets he'd insisted on, and had lost track of the conversation.

[intraspective]

"We're discussing the amount of translating that needs to be done to understand you," Ino replied brightly. "Dōjima-san assures me that it counts as it's own language."

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Hai!" she agreed, skipping over to steal one of his bags of sweets. "Especially if we're both still sleepy, and no one knows what language we're speaking."

[withoutverona]

"I always speak English," Romeo said haughtily as he sacrificed the candy to her, though he quickly gave up the act. "'Tis not my fault Verona forgot that English evolved elsewhere after 1600."

[intraspective]

Ino was just going to flop down on the blanket and grin over at the both of them.

"It's not a bad thing," she assured him. "It just requires a bit more thought to follow when you're in full Romeo-mode."

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"I think it's very handsome and romantic when he talks like that," she confided to Ino in a mock-whisper. "But don't tell him, or he'll try and use it to get his own way."

[withoutverona]

Romeo grinned deviously, fluttered his eyelashes at them ...

and spouted a sonnet to get the bento box with the cold peanut noodles in it. It was in full iambic pentamenter and packed three metaphors into each line, ending with a paean to the beauty of both ladies present.

Romeo, when told something was handsome and romantic, did not mess around.

"... like that, didst thou mean?"

[intraspective]

Ino stared.

"You should keep him," she advised Dōjima-san. "He's too potent a weapon to let loose on his own. That was marvellous."

Even if she was pretty sure she'd lost track of some of the metaphors. Poetry was not her strong suit. She'd caught the compliments though!

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"I think I might have to beat some of his female classmates off with a stick, soon," Yurika sighed, blushing from the poetry. "He's too devious for his own good."

"Now you see why I don't let him around the office often. I don't want him giving the boys ideas, or causing heart flutters with my female coworkers."

[withoutverona]

A triumphant Romeo had been busying himself with a large bite of those cold peanut noodles. He had to swallow before he could say, "I thought you liked it when I tease Robin."

Also blonde, big-eyed, and Catholic. If Romeo wasn't so very devoted to Yurika, Robin would have gotten a second glance at the least.

"My female classmates are all more interested in economics than in me, more's the pity."

[intraspective]

"They're smart enough not to fall for you," she laughed, casting her eyes up to the blossoms. "They'll... get rich first and then look for pretty men and their poetry."

Taking economics totally meant they were looking to get rich, right? Or something. It was business related anyway.

... Ino was smart, but she was no scholar, it was true.

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Leave the nun alone," she scolded, swatting at his arm and helping herself to a bento. "She's barely fifteen, you dirty old man."

Food achieved, she plucked a fallen blossom from the air and presented it to Ino. "See what I have to put up with, Yamanaka-san? Never fall in love with a poet."

[intraspective]

Ino laughed as she took the blossom and twirled it in her fingers. "I don't think the poet-sort is the right type for me even if they do tend to be cute."

But... really really not her sort.

[withoutverona]

"I'm not 20 yet, oh aged one," Romeo pointed out. "And I'm already rich." Not through his own doing, but still!

More thoughtfully, he added, "I don't see you with a poet, Ino. A fighter, perhaps."

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Happy birth~day to meeeeeeeeeee!" she sang, reaching for some chopsticks. "Even if it is a few days late."

"I'm not old, either. Just perfectly-aged!"

[intraspective]

"And you'll still be perfectly aged in a year, right?" she teased, tucking the blossom behind one ear and stretching to claim her own bento. Mmm food. "That seems a bit unfair to those of us trying to catch up--even if you are the birthday girl."

Ino was just going to... not answer the comment about her type from Romeo. That left her a bit jittery for some reason. A fighter, right?

[withoutverona]

"You'll catch up when you're both 29," Romeo said. "I expect to be older than she is, after that."

He reached up to pick a few flowers as he spoke, planning to give them to the girls.

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"I'm fine with being young, beautiful, and thirty forever," Yurika admitted without shame. "Just no older than that."

[intraspective]

"Thirty's too old," she said comfortably. "How about twenty-five? It has a nice sound to it."

[withoutverona]

"I wouldn't say no to staying 25, come to that," Romeo agreed as he took his eat with a pile of flowers at his side. "Yurika, do you think I'll look like my father when I'm older?"

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Your father is a very distinguished looking man for his age, koibito," she answered diplomatically. "But I wouldn't mind if you stayed looking like yourself."

[intraspective]

"What kind of a question was that to ask anyway?" she said lightly. "It's you she loves, not your father!"

[withoutverona]

"A silly one," Romeo conceded. "I'd worry if she did love my father."

He flicked a flower at Ino's nose.

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"I like your father just fine. What scares me is that so does Father Juliano," Yurika replied as she made a face. "I don't like it when a priest gets involved. I usually end up listening to lectures on propriety from my father."

[intraspective]

"Hey!" Ino protested as the flower bopped her and she rescued it before it could hit the blanket. "Flowers deserve your respect! Especially delicate ones!"

She wasn't talking about the cherry blossom, no.

"Does that happen often?" Ino asked curiously. "You getting lectures 'bout that?"

[withoutverona]

Romeo laughed, leaving Yurika to answer the question.

To Ino, he said. "I apologize. Are you a delicate flower now?"

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"More than he'd like to give them, and more often than I like to hear them," she laughed. "If you listen to my father, I am a most scandalous and unworthy daughter, and is opinion of Romeo is only somewhat higher."

"I fear this lily doesn't get much respect."

[intraspective]

"A very delicate flower," she said, with a nose wrinkle that was a bit more serious than her words.

Ugh.

"I don't think dad's are supposed to like the boys their daughters bring home. Something in their contract, I think? But I promise I'll respect you."

Laughing now, though. So much for respect.

[withoutverona]

"Two years," Romeo observed, "and he's finally stopped calling me gaijin instead of my name. I think that's as much acceptance as I'll ask of him."

Romeo found Yurika's father vaguely terrifying. "I respect you too, Ino."

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"We are all very respectful people. When we feel like it," she decided, picking up another flower to place it behind Romeo's ear. "Which is how it should be, for a sakura festival."

[intraspective]

Ino laughed softly.

"A friend back home is named Sakura," she volunteered. "Her hair is the same colour as the blossoms. I don't need your respect, but I do appreciate it."

And maybe she did need it, but that was a story told only in her smile.

[withoutverona]

"Pink hair?" Romeo asked, returning the smile. "Is that common in your world?"

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Strange hair color is common anywhere with overtones of Japan," Dojima laughed. "That's what I think. Have you seen the harajuku girls?"

[intraspective]

"Green and blue are more common," she admitted. "But pink isn't particularly rare either. Purple too."

... Pretty much, if you opened a box of crayons, you'd find a hair colour she recognized from Konoha.

"What are the harajuku girls?"

[withoutverona]

"Blue?" Romeo wrinkled his nose. "Harajuku girls -- we have to go see them. They wear the most fantastic, outrageous clothes you can imagine."

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"They look like a fashion disaster exploded," Dojima said bluntly. "It alternates between hilarious and eye-searingly horrible, with occasional flashes of couture brilliance."

[intraspective]

"I want to see!" she decided, laughing. "Because that sounds amazingly ridiculous. And yes, blue hair. Hinata's got blue hair!"

Very very dark blue hair, though. He could hardly be blamed for not remembering that when it masqueraded so easily as black.

[withoutverona]

"... I thought it was black," Romeo admitted, as if he read narrative. "But, yes. We should go after lunch."