1823/Gardens are Calm and Peaceful

Gardens are Calm and Peaceful
Date of Scene:	15 August 2016
Location:	Hisakata Residences
Synopsis:	Jiaying tries to make peace between Ayana and Sora. It does not go all that well.
Cast of Characters:	Sora Hisakata, Ayana, Jiaying Maki

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Sora Hisakata has posed:
Sora has been a bit more withdrawn than usual lately, rarely leaving her room unless she's doing chores or leaving the family grounds entirely, and with no school to pull her out, the latter hasn't been all that common either. Right now though, is one of those moments of chores.

Most of the kids have been set to work in the garden, pulling weeds, cleaning up, et cetera. Sora, albeit reluctantly, is doing her part. She's trimming some hedges with a big pair of scissors, looking like she loathes the task she's doing.

Ayana has posed:
Running into Jiaying is becoming a far too common occurence for Ayana when she's out. If she were smarter, the girl might dwell on why this is, but instead she's just slowly caving on her comfort level around the chinese girl. Today it was at the park, and once again Ayana shared popsicles. And once again, the conversation turned to Sora.

Abnormally, however, Ayana made a snap decision, offering, "Do you want to see the house? We're supposed to all be gardening, today, so Sora-chan will be outside. I promise the wards won't hurt you."

Of course, Ayana isn't gardening. After the disaster that was her last attempt at it, the kitsune managed to sneak out before Ikiko could drag her into the yard. She's fairly sure the task must be mostly complete, by now, and she's managed to avoid getting all muddy--which means avoiding taking a bath! Yay!

Thus, side-by-side, she escorts Jiaying towards the old Japanese mansion, dressed for a day of running and play instead of work, in a pair of bike shorts and a grey tanktop, sneakers and thigh-high socks with garter belts.

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki really does try to keep things as neutral as possible, it makes life a lot easier when everyone isn't all fighting and angry. It means less detention, fewer headaches and hopefully other thing things. As such, she actually is earnestly trying to get along with Ayana. There's the added benefit of maybe being able to keep her girlfriend happier in the long run if she can find some common ground or something between them.

The offer to go see more than the front gates of the house get a cautious nod from Jia with questions such as, "She won't get in trouble will she?" and "Why aren't you there helping?" Both valid questions in the Taiwanese girl's mind.

Jia herself is wearing her black sleeveless hoodie, trimmed in neon green and featuring a mass of Chinese on the back that trying to translate into Japanese gets a very confusing message. To tie this together, she's also wearing a pair of long cargo shorts and a pair of what look those skater shoes that look all big and soft.

Sora Hisakata has posed:
Sora happens to be at work near the front gates when she overhears two familiar voices, one welcome, one not so much. She kneels down behind the hedge she's working on, to gather for herself a big pile of dirt, waiting just long enough for a good opportunity to try to dump it all into Ayana's hair.

"Because she's a lazy good-for-nothing leech who decided she's too good to get her hands dirty." Sora answers Jiaying's question with clear frustration in her voice, "How was the party, Jiji-chan~? Sorry I couldn't come."

Ayana has posed:
"She won't get in trouble," Ayana promises as they walk towards the house. She's still got an orange popsicle in her hand, which she's been slowly sucking the cool out of. "And I'm not helping because last t--"

Whatever Ayana was going to say is lost, as a mass pile of dirt lands atop the kitsune. She shrieks in surprise and anguish (that popsicle was delicious, and now it's ruined!) and holds stock still as the dirt slowly falls off of her. "Why. Why did you do that?"

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki hops back and away from the falling dirt, lest any get in her own hair. She looks at Sora and seems at a bit of a loss for words there. On the one hand, dirt's not as bad as what else it could have been. On the other hand that was rather mean and there was no chance to even try and prevent it. "How long have you been hiding there exactly?" She finally asks, hoping it wasn't a very long time, just for this kind of thing.

She reaches into her pockets and releases her poltergeist, the one that normally would inhabit the stuffed Jiangshi bunny. There's a faint hint of laughter from the Chinese ghost, then it begins trying to help get the dirt from Ayana's hair while Jia quickly puts herself between them again. "The party was nice, though I'm sad you weren't able to make it. Naru may be joining us for practice." Should Sora try to move around, Jia would subtly move too.

Sora Hisakata has posed:
"Because you don't get to sneak out and avoid chores just because you don't like them. I loathe them too, but I don't act like I'm too good to get my hands dirty." Sora answers Ayana with a tone of clear annoyance, "You knew when you were moving in what the rules were, and it's just dirt, take a bath if you don't like it."

Her grievances aired, Sora takes a deep breath and turns to her girlfriend, cleaning her hands with her dirty shirt. "Not too long, I was cutting the hedge near here and heard you two approach." She approaches for a quick peck on the cheek, but makes no attempt to get to Ayana again. "Osaka-san? How is she doing."

Ayana has posed:
Ayana's ears, folded over in extreme sorrow, begin to quiver just a little with her displeasure. Each little twitch sends a bit of dirt to the ground. "But I do my chores," Ayana whines unhappily.

When the ghost approaches to begin clearing her of dust, she flinches, but doesn't try to get away. "You probably shouldn't let the ghost out. Papa Hisakata would probably try to banish it or something."

But then it's back to the matter at hand, "Why did you throw dirt at me, Sora-chan? I do my chores. I cook dinner every night, and I do my homework, and I help Mama with shopping, and sometimes I even clean the bathroom, even though it gets me all wet. Why do I gotta get muddy? Now I can't cook until I take a bath, and I really don't wanna take a bath, and Mama won't let me inside until Ikiko-chan hoses me off, and .. and .. and .." and she starts crying, leaving streaks of mud in the dirt on her face.

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki sighs softly and returns the kiss to Sora, using it as a chance to murmur, "That was meaner than usual Sora, is something wrong?" She might be feeling sympathetic because of the tears more than anything. The ghost continues helping clear the dirt, relying mostly on being hard to see. "Just warn me if he's coming- I do not know what he looks like and I can pull her back to the tag." The ghost doesn't respond to any of it. None of it is in Chinese after all. Though once enough of the dirt is cleared, she figures it might be worth the effort to do that ahead of time, just in case. She doesn't want to have to go back to Taiwan to get her friend back. Especially since she's not sure what would happen if the ghost was isolated again.

Overall though, she seems to be at a bit of a loss of what to do at this point. On the one hand, she does feel bad for Ayana, but on the other she doesn't want to upset Sora who may have had a reason to be frustrated herself, even if it was mean to just dump soil on someone's head.

Sora Hisakata has posed:
"Those are the normal chores, there's the special chores too, like when it's garden day. I heard you talk to Jiaying about it, so you don't get to pretend you didn't know you were skipping." Sora sounds rather upset, and the crying doesn't seem to help any there. "So rather than play innocent and act like I don't have any reason to be upset, while you know I loathe this day as much as you do, perhaps you could acknowledge your fault."

Yeah, Sora is angry, and she glances towards Jiaying, "It's like this every time. Some task Ayana dislikes comes up and she does what she can to get out of it, then acts like she doesn't know what she's done wrong. You're just reinforcing that habit you know. It's bad for her, too." She is quite grumpy.

Ayana has posed:
Ayana raises her hand to wipe at her tears, making the muddy mess all the worse. "Nuh uh," Ayana whines, "I don't do this all the time. But you skip out on chores, sometimes, too! And it's not like you really needed me; I just get in the way because I'm bad at gardening."

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki watches the two of them and after a moment, holds both hands up and backs away from both. Clearly this is a bit beyond what she's seen before. To Sora, she says, "Is this a normal? I mean big family chore days?"

There's a few moments, then she asks, "How are you bad at gardening Ayana?" suddenly looking very confused and honestly curious as to how one wouldn't be able to at least pull weeds. Something she's had to do before. Usually as a form of repayment for the nice auntie that helped her out when she was hurt.

Sora Hisakata has posed:
"I'm not good at gardening either, but you could still have helped the boys with carrying around the heavy stuff or something." Sora doesn't even dignify the accusation that she also skips out on chores with anything more than a clearly offended look.

"They're normal enough? We have them occassionally." She answers Jiaying, as she gets back to trimming the hedge she's next to. "It's a big place and it needs to be taken care of, so we all pitch in. Even if we don't like it."

Ayana has posed:
Ayana grabs the hem of her tanktop and flips it up to wipe her face off, unconcerned for what might show. "I didn't even do anything wrong," she whines further, but it's strictly speaking not true. She should have been helping with the gardening.

Jiaying's question goes slightly unheard for a moment, until she puts her now-muddy shirt back down and looks up to her, face miserably streaked with grime. "I just ... am not good at it. I dig the wrong things, or dig too much, or put the dirt where it's not supposed to go. Iki-chan has to supervise me when we do it and then it's like there's only one of us anyways."

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki eventually shrugs at a loss, leaning against the stone wall. "Ayana, you probably could have gone to someone for help. You don't learn if you don't do anything." Then to Sora, she says maybe a touch softer, not that she was being mean with Ayana, "Sora-" she hesitates. What could have been done here short of catching Ayana early so she couldn't escape. "Please don't dump dirt on people and let's just all..." Well hug isn't going to work. Neither is play nice. There's a string of frustrated Chinese before she breaks back into Japanese, "I almost wonder if you two enjoy messing with eachother."

Sora Hisakata has posed:
"I'd love to get along with Ayana, but she seems to insist on pissing me off." Sora ansers Jiaying with what seems like a fairly large amount of exasparation, "And sure, maybe I went a little overboard with the dirt, but she keeps pulling things like that so I thought payback was overdue." Nope, no apologies, and Sora doesn't really bother to respond to Ayana at all, anymore. "I'm finishing this off, and then go to work. As I agreed upon with mom and dad."

Ayana has posed:
"Wh.. but I don't mess with her!" Ayana complains at Jiaying. "I didn't do anything to her at all!" Now she's getting angry, along with her upset. "Ugh, this is why I can't trust you," she tells Jiaying. "I didn't do anything to Sora-chan, and even if I did skip out on my chore it's not like she has anything to do with it! There are a lot of people helping out, and she won't get my extra load just because I avoided the work. I'm not giving you any more popsicles," she promises Jiaying. "You just take her side!" Then she storms off towards the house--but in a minute she's going to get diverted to a hose.

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki watches Ayana, flinching when she's accused of taking Sora's side by default. "You did kind of skip out on chores today-I don't think you should have done that. What she did was mean though." There's a pause before, "She doesn't have to do extra work, but she still had to spend the day doing work." Pressing her palm to her forehead as Ayana stomps off, she says bluntly, "Neither of you are right today and I'm done. Neither of you actually want to get along so I'm staying out of it."

At least Sora admitted she went overboard, no apology though. "Next time- Stop her from escaping. Or have her chores written up so that when she gets back she still has to do them." she just sounds frustrated at this point.

Sora Hisakata has posed:
"I'll try." Sora responds to Jiaying's suggestion, with that kind of sullen, tone of. 'I genuinely intend to attempt this, but I doubt it'll work.' "Ayana and I got off on the wrong foot right away, and we keep clashing. And I. Hate. Gardening. And Ayana knows how much it pisses me off to see her skimp out while everyone else picks up the slack." She finishes the hedge, and heads towards her own place, "I'm getting changed and then I'm off to work. I'll call you tonight, promise~"