Mamoru'd texted Kyouko earlier to let her know he needed to catch Naru and talk to her privately about something she'd been avoiding, and asked if she could let him know when Naru came by.
So it is that Kyouko's stepped out for a bit, and it's not long after that that the key turns in the lock and the door reopens-- maybe she forgot something.
"Hello the house!"
Nope. Mamoru.
He closes the door behind him and steps out of his shoes, dropping his slippers on the floor and sliding into them.
There is no doubt whatsoever that Naru is comfortable at Kyouko's apartment, based on the fact that there's no one home for the moment, and she's settled at the low table in the living room, cross legged on a cushion, drawing with a cup of coffee close to hand. The barefeet doesn't speak to her being in a rush to /go/ anywhere, leggings and t-shirt make it abundantly clear that it's not a school day.
"That was qui.." Naru only gets that far into her comment on Kyouko's quick return before the voice illustrates that it is so not Kyouko.
Busted.
"Hey Endy." Naru greets, her voice just a hint cautious. "Want a coffee? I promise Kyouko didn't make it."
"Sure!" the prince of dad talks answers cheerfully, coming around slow-wise in a gradual room-circling toward where he's going to eventually deposit himself at the table across from Naru. In the meantime, he's looking around to see what Kyouko and Momo and Naru have done or added since the last time he's been there, a cloth bag dangling from one hand. He glances back and up over his shoulder, then half-turns to offer the bag to Naru. It's full of not just apples, but wooden sticks for shoving into them, and caramel and nuts. Candy-apple construction.
"I've got some time to work on helping you set up some defenses and fortifications and emergency lockboxes in your mind," he says, "since exams are over and crises never end. But I think we have some stuff to talk about surrounding it, don't we?"
He's stopped, finally, by the table; he's looking down at the sketch Naru is working on. The look on his face is quietly remote for a second, then recovers, and his dark blue eyes return to Naru. "Stuff like-- do you really think you should be invoking that in the home of two Puella Magi?"
"I'd really appreciate working on setting up some mind defenses." Naru agrees with a nod. "Crises never end, but there's momentarily a lull.. kinda. Ish. More than sometimes at least."
Naru moves to push herself up to her feet as he agrees to coffee and then she looks down at her sketchbook, to what's open and then back up to Mamoru. "It's just a sketch of a painting. There's nothing to be invoked, and there's no energy in it." Her tone comes with just a faint hint of defensiveness to it as she finishes getting up, bringing her own mug with her to refill while she's getting some for him.
"You don't know that you couldn't get distracted while you're working on it," Mamoru says gently, placing the bag on the center of the table, then moving aside to let Naru pass. "And there's something going on that might already be putting her in danger, that I haven't had the chance to talk to her about yet. Even if you're careful, it might not be wise to tempt fate." He gives her the opportunity to close the sketchbook, or even take it with her, then sits down on the cushions across the table from her spot and slides it over.
While Naru's getting coffee, he turns to the beginning of the sketchbook and begins looking through it, running dry fingertips extremely lightly over each page that even remotely looks like it might have something to do with Hana Shiroi. He can't necessarily sense any energy, like Kunzite could, unless it's actual dark energy-- but psychometry may tell him things plain energy wouldn't.
"Miss White, two summers ago, captured Kyouko and experimented on her soul gem. She put a piece of her own Linker Core in Kyou's soul gem. Over the intervening time, she's been experimenting on grief seeds and witches, and experimenting on herself, and even though she's not a Puella Magi she was able to modify grief seeds to grant her the power and abilities of a witch while retaining her mind and will and coherence," he says distractedly as he pages through the book.
"She did it more than once; I think it was the third time she did it that she lost herself and apparently briefly killed me. That was over a year ago. Now she's having difficulty with her Linker Core. Kunzite thinks it may be because of what she did to it with the witches. If correspondence applies, the piece of White's soul that's resident in Kyouko's may resonate with that same despair, making her more susceptible than usual to someone like Hana. And you're very close to Kyouko. And as I understand it, you're also very close to Hana."
"I have enough control for /that/." Naru protests from the kitchen on the idea that she might start accidentally empowering art. Again.
There's a collection of sketches that are clearly from Hana's apartment. The view. The rooms. A lot of the art. A /lot/ of Hana's art. A study of that red chair. Mostly done in pencil, some ink. Very little colour added anywhere, save for the chair.
Not even a drop of energy, dark or otherwise. Not even a hint of power. It's very observational, very much a study of the art, the room, the play of light. Curious, generally calm, with a hint of wary.
Naru returns with two coffees and she manages not to twitch at Mamoru flipping through her sketchbook, settled on specific sketches. She left it open for a reason. That is the reason. It still grates, somehow.
Naru is quiet through that explination, qukring her head thoughtfully as she kneels, sliding a coffee over to him. She does know how he takes his coffee at least.
"That .. explains a lot." Naru finally decides upon, clearly still processing the details of it.
It's a moment or two before Naru notes, "No one is very close to Hana, except Hana." Another moment or two. "But that's splitting hairs, and playing the technicalities and you want me to acknowledge that I've spoken with Hana."
The prince does go all the way through until the end, making sure he doesn't miss anything that might be in there past the page Naru was working on when he walked in, but his shoulders lose a lot of tension as he progresses. It might help Naru that his face and manner are the same as when Endymion was helping her piece her emotions back together after the worst time with the Wraiths -- gently clinical, professional, as if he were a good doctor already and performing a checkup that from anyone else would be horribly intrusive and personal. It might help.
When he's finished, he turns the sketchbook back to the page Naru was working on and slides it back across the table, right away around. He doesn't talk about what's in it, what he saw; he picks up the coffee Naru poured him and very carefully sips.
Then, "You don't need to. You already told me once. I just didn't know you still were, but I figured that out before I came to talk to you about it. What I want is to make sure that you and Kyouko are safe from preventable things." He sets the coffee down and crosses his arms on the table, sitting forward in a comfortable slouch. "I won't tell you to stop talking to her unless she's doing something to you you're not aware of-- which I hope to help you determine while we work on your defenses. I will ask you to keep me, Kyouko, or Kunzite in the loop, since it's actively stupid not to have informed backup available in case something goes wrong."
Naru watches her sketchbook get returned to her, her eyes down upon it, feeling vaguely as if a teacher has just gone through her math notebook to ensure that she's not doodling in class, or writing notes to other students rather than focusing on trigonometry.
Naru is quiet for a few moments and then she quirks her head. "I'm pretty confident she doesn't linger in my head, she's been visiting in dreams. What's weird is that talking to you about it.. totally different gut reaction that talking to Kyouko about it." She's not looking at Endymion, she's holding her coffee and watching her sketchbook. "I.. didn't expect /that/." She nods at that very reasonable suggestion about letting one of the three of them know. "Kyouko already asked for me to tell her."
She's not entirely wrong. Mamoru's also the kind of teacher who'd be doing that out of honest concern for the best interest of the student, rather than looking for a reason to punish. She's wrong on one count of it, though-- students answer to their teachers. Naru doesn't... answer to Endymion-- or at least, he doesn't expect her to.
His expression changes when Naru says Hana's been in her dreams, though. The tension returns, but this time it's from a different kind of afraid. He hangs on to it, though, addressing the other things Naru said first. "Kyouko's smart," he says, a laugh releasing from him at the last, like a pressure cooker's steam weight rattling for the first time in a session.
"It makes every kind of sense that your gut reaction talking to me is different from talking to Kyouko," he points out. "We're not dating, for one thing. For another, you've got me in a place of authority in your head, and you have had for almost a year. I gave you a name and told you that taking it meant you were accepting I was claiming you as one of us, and you took it-- which cemented that sense of authority."
He scrunches down further, head on his forearms and tilted to one side, looking to meet her eyes. "Naru-chan, I'm not your boss. I'm not your dad. I'd be honored if you thought of me like a big brother kind of, because I worry about you and I love you as a precious and important friend, and I want to protect you from what I can -- but you don't answer to me. Even today you could have told me to bug off, and I'd've..."
He pauses, then grants with a small grin, "I'd've followed the letter of your request, but I wouldn't have given up."
A heartbeat's silence, and he glances away to one side, getting a look like many people do when they tap their index fingers together like 'social whoops'. "Unless that's completely not what you mean and I've just revealed the immensity of my ego."
A delicate cough and he sits up, then picks up his coffee again. "So probably tell me what you mean, if you want me to understand. And, uh. In your dreams is actually more worrisome than just telepathically talking in your waking mind, so I'd actually like to visit, if I could. I'm going to tell Kunzite about that part, too, because it might be a risk to me to talk to her..."
Naru is quiet, thoughtful as she listens, a little furrow on her brow. as he details out some of his thoughts on why her gut reaction is different. "That's not what I would have articulated." She admits. "It fits though, to some degree." There's a flicker of a smile and Naru looks over at him. "Your ego /is/ pretty solid though."
Naru considers how /she/ would articulate it, beyond Endy's ego. "Mmmm. No. Certainly not my boss, nor my father.. but my friends' boss, on many levels." She's quiet again, processing through more thoughts, and emotions. "Generally if you're turning up, it means that I'm in over my head enough that you're directly involved. It's not so much authority as .." She trails off with a shake of her head, as if that line of articulation isn't working out in saying what she means. "Friend I can't argue with, but friend that I /try/ not to make life more difficult for." She pauses and then adds. "With Kyouko too, I got to explain it in my own time and terms.. she didn't say 'hey, I know this, tell me.', which apparently spikes up all sorts of desires to be really defensive about it, no matter that I could have said 'no.'. I know I shouldn't, even if I would really have liked to."
Naru takes a sip from her coffee, finally and nods. "I figure telling you things is telling Kunzite things. I don't know how she'll feel about someone else being there, probably interested. She's lonely."
Oh does Endy ever look sheepish. "I think that's even worse. I'm sorry. I-- you can always tell me things, and if I can't do something about it or am doing too many things, then I'll make sure someone who can help is available. You don't bother me. You don't ever bother me." He turns his cup around on the table between his hands, looking at it. "I tried to give you time to tell me, but you didn't want to. I was already worried. Kunzite's been giving you time, too. It's just that the longer something goes on without me knowing enough about it, the more my mind comes up with that could go wrong."
He looks up again, and he looks chagrined, apologetic. "Especially-- especially with things that could be corrupting influences, things that could be so very gently rewriting minds-- things that offer deals after working on people for a while. It's always going to be my first worry, my biggest worry."
Hanging unspoken: his Shitennou. All of them. The Lost Logia with Runealy, the sword one with Hannah, how long Kyubey was after Madoka...
"By the time I feel like I'm running out of time to talk to you about something that's worrying me, I'm about as subtle as a brick. I'm sorry. If-- if you really do want me to stop butting in, I will. I trust Kyouko. It's just that I feel safer when everyone has as much information as possible, when everyone knows what's going on with everyone else... and it's not like we have meetings." He sighs and picks the coffee up, face dropping for a second. "I want to give everyone space. But I don't want to lose anyone."
Finally he's silent for a second, and finally he looks back up at Naru. "But with Hana and the dreams ... can you ask her?" Endymion suggests. "I mean, ask her if it's all right. And-- just in case she panics instead of being interested, like if she doesn't know other people know she's talking to you and she wants to hide it, yes, we're definitely working on your defenses if you have time today, before you run into her again."
"The fight with myself to tell people hasn't been going well." Naru admits softly. "Because on many levels, I know it's not ideal. In dreams or not, but once you're in far enough.. even when you're being careful and thoughtful and doing a lot of self examination, there's the voice that says 'I wish to keep chatting with her, and people will tell me its a bad idea.. so I'll wait.. I mean it was just the once. It.. that second time wasn't any big deal. It's not often, I'm not acting odd or strange, she's not /doing/ anything... we're just talking."
Naru is quiet a moment after that. A slow breath. "But.. it's fair. It's legit, and I appreciate the patience, and I managed to tell Kyouko, but not so very long ago, and /that/ makes it easier. A lot more than I expected it would, to know that I managed to tell her and she didn't strangle me."
Naru quirks a half smile. "No offered deals, not per se, and we disagree on some fundamentals, which helped reassure me that I was probably not under her thrall utterly."
"... nnnnyeah," says Endy, actually legitimately squirming uncomfortably for a moment. "And avoiding telling people because you know they're going to tell you to stop and you don't want to stop... sometimes getting forgiveness takes a lot of work. And sometimes you don't even necessarily feel like you deserve forgiveness because of the chance you were taking, which you would have found out if you told..."
He trails off and his face is red. Someone is talking from recent experience, it seems. Then he looks down at his hands instead of his coffee, and he says quietly, "If I get mad at you, it'll only ever be brief, and because something you did that you knew was dumb got you or someone else hurt. I'd be the world's biggest hypocrite if I stayed angry over something like that. You really don't have to worry about that." Then he looks up and says--
--and his voice, his expression, they're more like she's generally come to expect from him in serious conversation--
"And besides, you know I'll always try to help you do whatever it is you want to do, try to help you find a way to make it safer. If I do end up trying to get you to stop, I'll always tell you why I think you need to. Like, say, if you found a Lost Logia and it was sweet sweet candy poison that would kill you and everyone you love."
He reaches up to rub the back of his neck, then picks up his coffee again and drinks some more of it. "Anyway-- please do ask Hana if I can talk to her, too. And I-- or maybe Kunzite or one of the others and I-- can come meet her in your dream."
"My stupid is on a much smaller scale of consequences." Naru points out as she watches him squirm a little. "Which isn't saying I've got a whole lot of urge to put my friends in danger, but I don't live on the scale of world ending apocolypses."
Naru pauses and then asks. "What's a Lost Logia?" She takes a deep breath and reaches for her coffee. "I'll ask, or you guys can just turn up and we can see if she's willing to be social." There's a wry little twist to her lips. "I'll try and even sweep up in my dreams, or something if I'm hosting. At the very least, provide one that Kunzite hasn't already had to tromp through." Another sip of coffee and Naru frowns a touch. "I'd also like more info about what's going on with Hannah and Kyouko.. but if you want to keep me out of that because of Hana.. one n Hana.. I get that. I'll worry, but I get it."
"...I've actually already told you the big part that's actually current," Endymion admits. "Just that there's a chance because of horrible stuff American Hannah did in 2015 that Kyouko might be hurt again now, and we need to watch her for weird behavior. I haven't talked to her about it yet, or to Hannah-- it's been exam hell, as you know, but I damn well told her I'd be coming to yell at her. She's attacking mages like her, lately. And Kunzite saw her linker core and it's a mess. I'm going to talk to her familiar first-- probably me and Kunzite-- and after I get the dirt from him we're going to talk to her and try and figure out the rest of it and how to make her stop without a fight. Which is sometimes possible if I get to her in time."
He shifts himself now, drawing back from the table a little in order to pull up his knees and cross his arms over them, chin once more on his forearms when he's not actually speaking. "What happened two summers ago-- that, you'd want to ask Kyouko and Hannah about, since I only found out afterwards. Kyouko probably hasn't said anything because it was a while ago-- but there are good reasons she hates Hannah."
He doesn't address her mental housecleaning; she can do what makes her feel comfortable. He also doesn't address the scale of consequences, since even thinking about it makes him surly. He does answer the other matter, though: "Honestly all I know about Lost Logia is that they're magical artifacts with varying power levels, unrelated to each other, generally not from Earth, occasionally with minds of their own, and usually with the ability to control a human host to varying degrees. The ones I've encountered have all been corrupt as hell."
"So while everyone is watching me to ensure that my brain hasn't been taken over by a not-entirely alive yet witch, we're also watching Kyouko to ensure she doesn't suddenly go weird." Naru nods slowly, shifting her coffee cup in her hands a little. "More weird, cause that bar is a little wobbly on what's /actually/ weird behaviour for any of us."
"Kyouko's alluded to some of it, but without a lot of details and it always feels like the sort of thing that poking for a lot of details that she doesn't want to share is a seriously dick move." Naru mmms softly and nods. "Yeah. I do not begrudge her hate of Hannah, even a little. I know she's not delighted wiht the fact that Hannah and I work out together and are friends." She frowns a touch. "I don't know much about linker cores /either/." She sighs softly.
"Sorry," says Mamoru with a shrug, "but yeah."
He finishes his coffee while Naru goes on and he listens, and he looks rueful. "Sometimes I feel guilty for being friends with Hannah, because of what she did to Kyouko. But I can't give up on her. I'm sure I can convince her to turn her powers to good-- it's just hard, because she thinks she needs to have all the power in order to keep the world from hurting people, and in a way she's not wrong. But she doesn't understand that even getting her ideal world would hurt people, because not everyone is hurt by the same things."
Endymion sighs and puts his empty cup down, and he briefly thunks his forehead against his arms a couple of times; his voice is muffled, therefore, when he adds, "It doesn't help, obviously, that she's so desperate for that power that she thinks the ends justify the means. That she can make up for all the people she's hurt when she gets what she's after."
A glance up, then, one blue eye trained on Naru while half his face is still on his arms and the other obscured by his hair. "Linker cores are just what the Device mages call personal sources of magic-- magical hearts, more or less. What stores your magical energy. Part of you, your soul sometimes... like soul gems, or the Ginzuishou. I know a mage doctor who basically just classifies everyone's as a linker core, because everyone alive has the potential for magic, even if they never realize it."
"In the interest of full disclosure, I don't /think/ Kyouko can sense Hana when she's in my dreams." Naru comments almost absently. "I'm pretty sure she woke up because I was restless rather than because she could sense a witch, but its hard to say."
"There's a problem when you're certain that your version of things is the only version that is worthy and can be. It's a problem to enforce that reality upon everyone else by force of will." Naru nods slowly. "No one's ideal is perfect for everyone, and that's where the conflict is."
"I can appreciate the temptation." Naru's voice is quiet. "Power is a helluva temptation, especially if you think you have something to prove, and the hardest person to convince is yourself."
"Ah." Naru's voice has that note of understanding. "I follow the concept, I just hadn't given it a name in my own head, or apparently in someone else's lexicon. That's interesting."
A few texts back and forth over the past few minutes have reassured Kyouko that Naru does not want to kill her for the crime of setting up this little intervention, which really just amounted to a lie of omission- still, there had been some minor fretting while Kyouko was Staying Out of the Way.
Naru says she isn't mad, but it could be a trap. Well, Kyouko doesn't really think it's a trap, Naru isn't the sort to be that duplicitous (in her experience) but the part of her that always considers the worst-case scenario decides that it's better to be safe than sorry.
That's why when the key rattles in the lock for the second time, and this time it actually is Kyouko, she enters the apartment with a white paper bag held in front of her like a shield, and is still holding it such after kicking off her shoes and rounding the corner into the living room.
One scarlet eye peeks around the side of the bag, trepidacious. "Um.. so like.. is everything good? I stopped at Taco Bell on the way home and brought some because um.. it was on the way and.. food is the best apology?" Her personal philosophy may be leaking.
There's a nod from Mamoru-- but there really doesn't seem to be anything else to say on any of that, and he turns his empty cup around, trying to wrench his brain back to -- what was the other reason he was looking for her--?
His face clears. "Right, we were going to work on your defenses, too," he says and moves the cup aside, then shifts again in order to scoot back up toward the table and hold his hands out across it. "I'll invite you in again so you can see what I've got set up, first..."
And that's where he is when Kyouko comes in, apologizing with Taco Bell.
Mamoru looks completely uncomprehending for a second, then suddenly laughs. "Did you get some for me too, or am I getting kicked out?"
There is no scene of carnage all over the living room, not even the signs of a scuffle. There's empty coffee cups, and a currently ignored sketchbook and two people sitting on either side of the coffee table, even reaching over to be able to offer Mamoru her hand.
Naru turns as Kyouko appears with taco approximations and she smiles, which is probably more reassuring than anything she might have texted. "We're good. Dad didn't even take away the car keys for me being an idiot." The snort of amusment in that speaks volumes for how much fun she's willing to poke at herself. "Although apparently if I chat with Hana again, I should just post a note on the fridge upstairs, or possibly group text."
Kyouko relaxes considerably upon seeing Naru's smile, and Mamoru's laugh helps as well, because he probably wouldn't be laughing if the talk had gone badly. The bag is lowered, and a smile, lopsided and one-fanged, flickers into being on her own face. "Oh.. oh. Good. Yeah, very good." She says, heaving a faint sigh as she pads on bare feet over towards the table.
The bag is plopped down in the center of said table. "I got you some." This to Mamoru. "I got you a Doritos Locos taco because you like Zo-nii so I figured you like spicy things. But I also put in extra packets of sour cream because you like Kunzite, too."
Then she folds her legs to sit next to Naru.. eyeing the held hands in the middle of the table. "Although, Mamoru, it's bad form to try and steal my girlfriend when you already have one and two boyfriends." This is said with a warmly teasing note that makes it plain she knows it's nothing shady, but can't resist the sisterly ribbing.
"Tch," Mamoru says to Naru, rolling his eyes at the car keys comment, then sitting back on his heels and grinning at Kyouko-- and then his eyes widen at her avalanche of increasingly scandalous comments. "Oh my god," he says, covering his eyes. And is he blushing? He's probably-- no, he's definitely blushing. "You're awful-- oh my god I'm not trying to steal your girlfriend!!"
His hand drops from his face and he looks like he always looks when successfully trolled: faintly panicked and hideously embarrassed. "No I know you're joking but god don't joke about that in front of Usagi, she's literally the only girl I'm interested in and I don't ever want her thinking otherwise..."
Then he's lunging across the table to open the bag, and he scrabbles through it to find what she got for him so he can stick it in his mouth and shut up before he says anything else.
Doritos Locos taco where it goes, he yoinks the other bag off the table and tosses it to Kyouko. Apples, sticks, caramel, and nuts.
"Hey, leave me out of the flow chart!" Naru protests as she reaches for the bag of taco bell to see what Mamo's left standing after his rush of hunting for taco as armour. Somehow. There's a little laugh from Naru shaking her head at the idea of Usagi actually thinking /anything/ of the sort, even for a moment.
Naru leans just a little to nudge shoulders with Kyouko, a little affectionate gesture that illustrates even more that she isn't mad about Intervention: Mamoru style. "Speaking of Usagi, she thinks dark red nail polish."
Kyouko's grin grows wider and wider at Mamoru's increasing levels of blush and protest, until it's positively cheshire-cat level. But, perhaps feeling a little bad at seeing the tinge of panic, she gets up briefly to walk over and give him a quick hug. "I'd like to think that Usagi knows me and especially Naru well enough to know that ain't a thing." She says, still grinning. "But she might still have to act jealous just for appearance's sake, so.. I'll refrain."
Then she's returning to her seat next to Naru, legs folded comfortably beneath herself- pausing just a moment to catch the bag Mamoru tosses her. She opens it, peering inside. "Ooh. Caramel apples." She beams. "I know what I'm having for dinner."
Laughing, she puts the bag down. "Tacos. But caramel apples for dessert. I might even share. Maybe." Naru nudges her shoulder, and she nudges back playfully as she claims some of the Fauxican food from the bag. "Red is sorta my color." She says, letting Mamoru hide in his taco for a few as she turns to eye Naru. "But do you think it's too.. obvious? I mean, I'm open to broadening my horizons."
"You better share, otherwise I'm going to just sit in here and laugh while you melt caramel." Naru points out with a grin, and teasing of her own. Kyouko + kitchen = don't ask about the cookies.
"Love. Seriously. If we were going obvious, then it would be electric blue or scarlet or something equally eye searing." Naru grins. "The sort where every time you move your hand for a good day or two after, you startle yourself cause /omg what are on my fingers/." That has the voice of experience, right there. "Burgundy? Not quite that startling. It's pretty classic."
Kyouko scowls, but it's a good-natured scowl. She knows her own deficiencies. "I was just gonna eat all the ingredients seperately and make caramel apples in my mouth." She declares, haughtily. "But I guess I can let you help and do it properly instead."
As Naru returns to talking about colors, Kyouko's lips twist to the side faintly. She holds up her hand, nails currently unpainted, as is her normal state of affairs, apparently trying to envision what they would look lik ewith color. "That's not what I meant by obvious but.. point taken. I'm jumpy enough without needing to think some kind of bright-color-youma is attacking every time I absently move my hand." A brief sigh. "I suppose you kno better than I do about this sorta thing."
Naru giggles. "Awwww, but assembling them is part of the /fun/." Says the one with a hope of managing to make caramel stick to apples in a way that probably wont look like pintrest fail by the end.
Naru lifts the hand that isn't holding some approximation of a taco and splays her fingers out as she waves it next to Kyouko's. Her own nails unvarnished and colour-free. "Oh yeah. /Totally/ the expert here, you can tell by all the nailpolish I wear everyday." She giggles softly. "I have lived vicariously through a lot of gossip, debate and shopping, however. I mean, we could broaden your horizons into baby pink, but that seems weirdly even more distracting than the 'oh it looks so natural' claims that I don't believe."
Kyouko makes exaggerated gagging sounds. "Ugh, no pink, please. I so do not do the girly thing. I mean.. I'm hopin' I can pull off 'mildly respectable woman' but I leave the pink puffball chic to Madoka-chan and others who somehow manage to make it look cute and not laughable."
Kyouko seems relieved that the banter, which is generally pretty normal for her and Naru, is in full swing, because it means that the girl really isn't mad at her for if not quite arranging, then at least abetting Mamoru's cornering of her.
"Assembling things just so that I can then dissasemble them with my teeth always seemed like an odd amount of effort to me." Kyouko says, on the topic of caramel apples. "There are plenty of things in this apartment I'd like to eat that don't require assembly." Head tilt. "But. I suppose in the interest of broadenin' my horizons, as stated earlier, I can give it a shot."
Mamoru has run out of taco, and is licking his fingers like he's Kyouko or something. "Your henshins have pink," he points out, "and Kunzite's powers are pink. There is absolutely zero that is frilly about him."
He finally reaches to get a napkin and wipes off his licked fingers. "And I can think of plenty of things that assembling ahead of time makes disassembling that much more rewarding."
Naru gestures at Mamoru as he provides arguements for her. See? Naru noshes on taco while Mamoru takes up the pink cause.
Or something.
"Most suppers are better as a whole than in pieces." Naru also comments. "AND as an added bonus, /I/ get to enjoy the assembling and you get to enjoy the destruction. Win/win here." She adds after a moment. "Although the poofy pink threat is still on the table. I will get you."
Kyouko now directs her scowl at Mamoru as he, quite rightly, points out that her henshin does include some pink. "Alright but like.. that's not the same as pink nail polish. I like a lot of things that are pink but I think.." She struggles for a moment to provide further justification, then sniffs. "Fine, we'll go with the burgundy, okay?"
The point about the caramel apples is received with a faint grin. "Well, I guess yer right about that." She says to Naru on the subject of it being a win/win situation. "Alright then. You create, I will destroy. Except you can also destroy because I'm not that greedy. Y'know, most of the time. Also Mamoru can destroy one if he wants." A gracious nod across the table. "He did bring the stuff."
Then a faintly hunted look crosses her face at Naru's poofy pink threat. "Um.. I vote to table that discussion until Mamoru isn't here." She stage-whispers.
This is the point at which Mamoru lifts his hands. "You are welcome to all the candy apples," he says with a laugh, getting to his feet. "Naru, remember, let's get your defenses in order before we talk to Hana. I can come by later tonight after I talk to Boris and spend some time with someone who likes pink a whole lot. Thanks for dinner, Snapatite~!" Then he's over by the door and swapping his slippers for his shoes, and he throws a smirk over his shoulder at Naru. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
ZOOM. Door is closed.
Naru can't help but laugh and she waves after Mamoru. "Later. Let me know what you find out from Boris!" She calls after him and then snorts softly. "Thanks for giving me plenty of leeway!" That smirk is returned, amused and affectionate, even /with/ the intervention.
Naru's attention settles upon Kyouko and she grins. "Pink. And poofy. It'll be /awesome/."