Room 504, Sunday Evening

[flowering_mind]

To say that Ino had been well pleased with her week was understating things more than a little, which meant that today (other than the brief period wherein 'today' had meant 'afternoon'' and she'd wound up talking to Squall), clearly, was a day meant for a) having chocolate and b) sprawling out on her bed in a tank top and shorts and playing with

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[puppy_fair]

Potato chips. Somewhere during the course of the evening, Zack had developed a hankering for some potato chips. And so he'd bit his happy Ino adieu, and he'd wandered off in search of them, a quest that had taken him off into town, because while he would eat a lot of things, the soggy stale things that he'd found in the common room were... not among them.

He was... probably understandably confused when his happy Ino was not as happy as she had been when he'd left, by the time he got back.

"Hey, Ino...? Are you okay?"

He'd brought her a bag, too, but they could probably wait.

[flowering_mind]

"I think," Ino said, giving her old pink phone a long look. "That really it just ain't worth answerin' the phone some days."

Which wasn't an answer but at least gave an indication of what might be bothering her?

[puppy_fair]

... Ow. This called for ditching the chips on the nightstand and taking a seat on the bed beside her. All the better for putting an arm around her shoulder.

"Bad news?"

[flowering_mind]

She snuggled right on into him, and tugged over the notepad she'd scribbled a few things down in.

"You know anything 'bout breaking a curse that was triggered by numbers being used?" Ino asked, sighing. "Hurley's got a bit of a predicament and I said I'd--see what I could find out."

[puppy_fair]

Zack bit his lip at that.

"Curses on my world can be broken with remedies," he pointed out, "but they're not really caused by numbers, either. We have equipment that can prevent curses, too, but I don't know how much good that would do him if he's already been."

He scuffed his toe against the floor, thoughtfully.

"I can try to get some of that stuff together anyhow. A black belt, or a gris-gris bag, or even just some simple slotted accessory with the right materia fitted in. It can't hurt, at least."

[flowering_mind]

She nodded slowly.

"I didn't think you'd know," she admitted, "'cause your world works different. But that might help, yeah."

[puppy_fair]

"Anything is worth a shot, right? And maybe somebody at the magic shop in town would know, too? I haven't been in there, but it's worth check out to be sure."

Or he could ask someone at the Magic Reserves, for that matter. There wasn't exactly a shortage of people on the island who would know about curses.

[flowering_mind]

"I'll ask around," she said, with a bit of a sigh. "See what I can get from people. Is it--bad--that I wish there was just somethin' good goin' on?"

[puppy_fair]

"I don't think there's anything the matter with wishing that good things were happening to your friends instead of bad ones," Zack pointed out, frowning thoughtfully. "In that meantime, I'll ask Kunsel if he has any leads on a gris-gris bag that I can get in a pinch."

[flowering_mind]

"Put that way it don't sound bad at all," she admitted, smiling a tiny bit. "It was just soundin' more selfish in my head."

Her special, special head.

[puppy_fair]

Zack smiled a tiny bit to go right along with her little smile, and then reached up to ruffle her hair.

"Your head is a silly place sometimes," he decided. And then he pulled her into a hug. "We'll find a way to help your friend, Ino. If there's any place out there to find the solutions to things, it's here, right?"

[flowering_mind]

"Not silly," she informed him but there was no heat behind it as Ino was just going to cling into that hug, oh my yes. "And, you know, I keep tellin' myself that..."

But so far, had it really been true? None of her problems were ones that Fandom had been able to fix.

[puppy_fair]

The thought had gone unfinished, but Zack figured he knew his Ino well enough to know where it had been headed.

"Well, if we can't fix this through Fandom, then we find another way," he decided, as if that was as simple as it ever had to be. "You said the curse was caused by numbers? So... we find out if those numbers have any significance. Or if whatever the effects of the curse are, they can be prevented, somehow. This isn't the end of the world, right?"

... Very apt way of putting that one, Zack.

[flowering_mind]

Ino cringed and wished she hadn't.

"No," she said, "it's not the end of the world."

[puppy_fair]

And when she cringed, he winced.

Right. Right.

"Nothing needs to be the end of the world," he added, deeply and firmly. "None of it is set in stone."

[flowering_mind]

"You believe that?" Ino asked, glancing up to try and catch his gaze.