During the lunch hour at Seiyou Public School, most students rush off to spend time with their friends on the school's ground, enjoying their meals with good company. Amu Hinamori is generally not an exception to this rule; she frequently spends it with the Guardians.
Today, however, Amu Hinamori sits by herself on a grassy knoll, far from the students she nominally thinks of as friends. Amu has a little bento box in her lap, but she has hardly touched it. In fact, the trio of little charas using a napkin like a picnic blanket have eaten more of the box's contents than Amu has.
Rather than eating, the pink-haired girl is instead spending her time sighing at the clouds, shivering a little in the cold, and generally looking very sorry for herself. What a sad state for the cool and spicey girl to be in. Of course, most of the student body has written it off as some new fshion trend, to look so disaffected. This time tomorrow half the girls in school will probably be mimicking that look. But anyone who bothers to actually look at the girl can tell something's bothering her.
Lise, slowly settling into school life, has found herself wandering during her lunch break. She'd already eaten, and had gotten in her fill of archery practice in the morning. Best to not overdo it, what with a club meeting later today!
Eventually, braids swaying in the breeze, she comes across a particularly downtrodden looking Amu Hinamori. Being an outsider and a foreigner, her reputation escapes the transfer student, and so Amu would suddenly see a pair of braids swing into focus followed by a freckled face and thick glasses.
"Hello Hinamori-san. You look like you could use some companionship. Would you mind if I join you?" Comes the girl sweetly, smiling gently as she leans over with her hands behind her back.
Amu lets out another soft sigh when the braids fall into her vision, but she doesn't do anything to disuade Liselotte. "Hn. Whatever," she mumbles instead, not bothering to explain what's wrong. This one's a stubborn nut to crack.
"Lise-chan!" comes Miki's voice from the trio of Chara's. The blue-haired chara flies up to greet Lise face-to-face, a bright smile on her face. Ran and Su follow her shortly. "Hi! Did you practice archery again this morning? I drew a picture," Miki says, and a small notepad pops into her hands. "Do you want to see?"
Lise hardly seems perturbed by Amu's behavior, and instead offers her a widening smile. She's just getting to sit down when up into her face is a happy Miki! Laughing, she gives her traditional finger-pet.
"I practice every morning. Hello, Miki, you are looking lovely today."
She perks up a little.
"Please!" She leaning in to get a look at the tiny picture!
The other two charas get a smile as well and a fingerpat each! Her attention does shift back to Amu briefly.
"You know, they say a problem shared is a problem halved."
Miki grins excitedly and tears a page from her notebook, then hands it to Liselotte. As Liselotte touches the page, it pops into a full size sheet of paper, exactly as if it were drawn in one of the archer's own sketchbooks (if she has such a thing). The picture is of Liselotte herself, drawn to immaculate detail, including her braided pony tails and her slightly long nose. If it weren't a sketch it might be mistaken for a photograph on a white background. The only change is that Liselotte isn't wearing any outfit she's likely worn before, in this picture. She is, instead, dressed in the outfit of a traditional Japanese shrine maiden, with a yumi bow in her hand, an action pose as she leaps through the air, shooting an arrow, with six others carefully gripped in the fingers of that same hand, ready to be shot rapidly at her targets.
"Nnnh," Amu replies to Liselotte, not even really paying attention to Miki's antics. "It's just stupid boy trouble," Amu says grumpily. "Not really important, and probably not of interest to you."
Lise looks stunned by the work for a moment, smiling and laughing as she takes in every detail. She finally tears her gaze away, and then pulls Miki towards her for the lightest of hugs!
"It is beautiful, Miki! If you are Hinamori-san's potential, then she could truly become a master! I've never seen a picture with so much detail. Maybe I will model some time, hmm?"
Letting go of the little Chara, she focuses on Amu.
"Ah, the ever-constant plight of our young lives. They are nothing but trouble, hmm?"
But then her head tilts. "From the look on your face, I do not think 'unimportant' is something this boy trouble ends as. And I am very interested in hearing it, if you want to tell it." Offers Lise gently with that smile of hers. All warmth, and seemingly without an ounce of force behind it.
Miki literally turns cartwheels as she spins back down to the napkin that she and the other charas are using for a picnic blanket. Such an excited little chara! Such a contrast to Amu's own mood. It actually looks like Amu's not about to open up to Lise at all, but Miki decides to be helpful and tells Lise, "A catboy saw her in a towel, and now Tadase-kun knows and she thinks he hates her."
"Miki!" Amu scolds, turning to glower briefly at the chara. "Don't make me flush you down the toilet!" Miki just pulls her eyelid down and sticks out her tongue at Amu.
"Ohhh, Amu is being stubborn again," Su chimes in, and Ran just giggles at the whole affair.
Amu throws up her hands in frustration, then turns to glare at Liselotte. "Well, there you go. Now you know."
There's a little gasp from Lise for a moment, before Miki is being threatened with a goldfish funeral. There's a slight frown!
"Now, now, Miki did not mean anything by it, did you Miki?" Pet pet pet!
Ahem! Lise doesn't back away, her legs crossed, looking at Amu and weathering that glare with a smile.
"Now then, so you have a kitty boy showing up, I'm assuming uninvited, and catches you after you got out of the shower. Granted, I have not known Tadase-san long, but he does not exactly strike me as the kind of boy to be angry at /you/. On the contrary, I think he would be angry and naughty little kittens that sneak up onto balconies. Perhaps he will even deny this horrible cat catnip for a week. Why do you think he hates you, hmm?"
"Because I was defending the catboy when he found out!" Amu replies unhappily. "Because Ikuto doesn't mean to be a jerk, he just ... I don't know why he does it. But he clearly doesn't want to. It's like he's trying to protect me, and Tadase-kun, from something. And the only way he knows how is to be a jerk."
Amu lets out a noise of frustration. "It doesn't make any sense, but then I was talking about Ikuto being a nice guy and I mentioned he had brought me candy, and Tadase asked when and I didn't want to tell him, but someone," here she turns to glare at Ran, who at least has the good grace to look chagrinned with a hand behind her head and a giant nervou ssmile. "Someone decided I should tell the whole truth, towel and all."
Lise rubs her chin thoughtfully as Amu finally explains everything. She nods at several points. Her smile is definitely dampened by now.
"The /complicated/ kind of boy problems."
"So then you think he hates you because you defended someone who is trying to defend him and you, albeit in a foolish way. I think you need to talk to him, Amu-san. Tadase, I mean. If you can make him understand you're just worried for both him and Ikuto, maybe he'll realize what you meant. And certainly he realizes that Charas have this habit of being very, very silly. Does he really strike you as someone who would hate so easily? I see an eccentric, but very kind boy when I look into his eyes."
"Mmmmh," Amu sounds utterly unconvinced. "It's not that," she says with a sigh. "If this were any other boy I wouldn't even care," she explains. "But it's ... Tadase-kun. And ..." she trails off, then plucks at the grass beneath her legs as if that explains everything.
After a moment, she says, "I wish I could go back in time and unsay what I said. Just not even defend that stupid cat. Let Tadase-kun hate him. It'd be so much easier."
Lise looks Amu in the eye as she plucks grass, and seems so very lost. The archeress considers, and then sighs herself.
"He's someone special to you." She adds, letting that sink in for a moment.
"You cannot go back in time. But what you can do is try to fix mistakes, though I'm not certain you made one. No good comes from hatred." She knows that very well, after all.
"Instead, understanding. It seems to me you have a well-meaning person who is doing things foolishly, and a good friend caught up in it all. Talk with him about it. Let him know that you want to see his side of things. Maybe then, you both can find a compromise, and most importantly, understand each other's feelings."
"I understand his feelings," Amu says with a little whine. "I feel the same way. I want the stupid catboy to stop being a stupid thief and do the right thing. Ugh," she says, then reaches up to rub her face. "There's no good answer to this. I guess I'll try to talk to him. It's not like he can avoid me; we've got to do the stupid Guardians meeting after school."
The german archeress smiles, reaching over, and offering a one-armed hug that's friendly and a bit strong given all the time on the archery range.
There's even a gentle rubbing of the hair! How uncool, but oh-so-sisterly!
"Then I think you two will get over the small things, and find enough common ground to help your kitty-eared friend." She emphasizes friend. REally, the whole thing smacks of two friends helping a delinquent third.
Letting go, she stands, and stretches.
"If you want, I'll join you. Purely for morale support, you understand." Seems 'private meeting' means little when there's one of the few people she could almost put in the friend box around.
"Ahhhh, no," Amu says, waving both hands in uncertainty. Not only would that be incredibly embarasing ... "You have to get approval to come to one of those meetings and I don't think I can give it. I'm sorry. I don't know why it's that way, but if you want an invite I can let the King's Chair know!"
Lise considers, and then just nods.
"If you need me there, ask. If not, I will trust that you will manage it, Hinamori-san."
Cue the ringing of the school bell!
"As much as I enjoy the sunshine, I do believe that's our cue. Come on, we do not want to be late. Good luck, Amu. I think if you really put your mind to it, you will solve this kitten caper in front of you." A little wink, and then she's off!