213/Time and Space

Time and Space
Date of Scene:	10 July 2023
Location:	Radiant Heart Academy / Setsuna's Place
Synopsis:	An uncharacteristically distraught Haruka finds her way to Setsuna's office, and a strange connection is formed. Also, Haruka finds 3 things to fall in love with! (they're cars.)
Cast of Characters:	Setsuna Meiou, Haruka Tenoh

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Setsuna Meiou has posed:
The infirmary at the Radiant Heart Academy is, as perhaps expected, just as swank as the rest of the school. It's a large, well-supplied room separated with some of those rolling medical divider walls. Fairly nice beds can be seen here and there through gaps, and the main area is set up like a typical waiting room/nurse's station, complete with posters giving info about various adolescent diseases/conditions/problems.

Of slight note is one poster that's oddly prominent that reads 'Whatever you do, always give 100." There's a break, then it continues, "...unless you're donating blood."

At the moment, the school nurse is more or less at her ease, leaning against one of the counters and reading a book, the back of which has a picture of a tall, scruffy-looking, trenchcoated man holding a staff with his left hand extended around which a shockwave of flame is breaking as if around an invisible shield. In her off hand, she's absently rolling a pen across her knuckles, flipping it between each set of fingers before passing it back to the other side to do so again.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
Haruka was storming through the school grounds. Honestly, if you asked her, if she asked herself, she wasn't sure how she ended up near the infirmary. But she looked a mess, especially for anyone who knew her. She was wearing the boy's uniform as so she often chose to, but the bow tie was a little disheveled, one of the buttons was undone on the vest. The overcoat was slightly wrinkled. Her hair was a bit of a mess. And she, herself, was not calm and collected nor beautiful and smirking. She was mad. Frustrated. And yet, she had no one to point it at. She had already let out a lot of her anger and then gone to school, her bag full of most of the limited things she cared about, which were mostly clothes.

    Haruka was maybe drawn here in this time of such high stress and frustration. Michiru wasn't here, but Michiru wasn't the only old soul at Radiant Heart, the only unknown ancient teammate. And so she found herself looking into the nurse's office at Setsuna, just kind of drawn there, drawn to her. Setsuna gets a rare view of the handsome girl frustrated and dissheveled before something makes her shake it off, look down, and start straightneing things out. When the Nurse looks up, Haruka's eyes meet hers, and after a moment she speaks.

    "Hey, Meiou-sensei, is it cool if I just... sit down in here for a little bit?" she asks. "Just to... get my head back on straight?"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou blinks precisely once at the rather odd sight of the normally quite dapper-looking Haruka Tenoh looking so very much out of sorts. One of the main indicators of her surprise would be that the pen she's been spinning across her knuckles comes to a sudden and complete stop in her hand.

After that single beat, she makes a little twisting gesture with her hand and the pen disappears...but that might go unnoticed as she snaps her book closed and sets it on the counter behind her (in the process revealing it's title is written in English as 'Blood Rites'). She then quickly stands and clacks across the room in her 3in heels and ushers Haruka into the room, "By all means, Miss Tenoh. Come in. Come in. Please. Have a seat."

She indicates a comfy looking seat off to one side and takes a moment fussing over her as she sits down...mostly so she can take a surreptious look over the dishwater blonde to assure herself that the younger woman isn't injured.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    Haruka isn't injured. She didn't even hurt her fist, this morning. Well, she's not physically injured. There's something about constant battles with ones own parents over who you are and who you are allowed to be that is mentally taking, even mentally injurious, no matter how self assured you might be. In the moment, Haruka doesn't mind being fussed over. Well, she generally doesn't mind being fussed over by pretty women anyways, but right now it soothes her more than any other thing it might do.

    "Sorry. I'm fine I just - need a little bit." she says. Trying to maintain her composure. Because that is one of the things she is. One of the 'who' she wants to be. The knight, the prince, the dashing and suave and cool girl, where nothing ever gets to her. "Kind of a... I had an interesting morning." She pauses and smiles. "Not many places on the campus that are calm enough to think." To be fair there might be others but she doesn't know them. Normally, she runs to think. Right now she doesn't want to run, and that thought disturbs her, too. Outside she can see the wind blowing through the trees and it pulls her eye. It's angry, like a storm is coming, but also disjointed, like the wind is coming in bursts.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou hrms at Haruka, then walks over to the door and absently closes and locks it, glancing over at Haruka as she does so, "So we won't be disturbed for a little while. I get the feeling you have enough on your plate at the moment." That done, she walks over to a jar in the corner, reaches in and retrive something...then walks over and with a little flourish, a full-sized Snickers bar appears in her hand, "In the meantime, have one of these. You could probably use the carbs at the moment, and the serotonin hit won't hurt, either."

Then she pulls up a chair and asks in a tone of mild concern, "...did you want to talk about whatever is bothering you? If you don't, that's fine...but while I'm not a licensed therapist, I AM a sympathetic ear, and I promise that nothing said will leave this room."

Ah. Thus, the lock.

The nurse then sits back a little, "If not, you can still take as much time as you need. I will not push nor judge you, Miss Tenoh."

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    Haruka looks... suspiciously, quizically at Setsuna. She does, however, take the candy bar. She's mostly back to herself now. Mostly back to exuding the aura she wants to exude. Being the person she wants to be. Which is of course, not the person certain other people would choose for her to be. But there are the hints. The way she keeps looking past Setsuna at the trees outside. The way she opens the candy is dainty and practiced, but the bite she takes out of it and the chewing is very angry.

    "I'm fine." she says. "I just needed a moment. Which you gave me. So thanks." She stands up, and gives Setsuna a bow, and turns towards the door.

    And then she doesn't walk towards it. She looks at it, she looks back at Setsuna, and then she sits back down. She grumbles a non-word of some sort. "I don't really trust people well. Your bedside manner is clearly excellent." she says. Compliment the pretty lady, that gets her back to herself faster, right. She takes a deep breath.

    "I have to find somewhere I belong." she begins. "I mean, somewhere other than my parent's home. I'm not welcome back. Good riddance, though. Do you think I can file for a dorm room here? Can I sign up myself? That would make things much easier." she begins. Her hand that isn't currently holding the candybar clenches and unclenches, and her eyes just kind of keep looking out the window. But they do occasionally look to Setsuna. She does feel at ease with the nurse here. She finds it a little easier to smile. Especially *at* the nurse.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou's eyebrow arches at Haruka when the younger woman bites off her candy bar like it personally offended her, and she gives a curious look when the blonde stands to go...but when she then flops back down into her chair, said nurse just smiles a soft little smile and nods her head in recognition of the compliment, "Thank you, dear. I DO try."

At Haruka's explaination, however, the nurse's expression turns a little more serious...and she reaches out to absently take Haruka's hand and look over her knuckles, absently running a thumb across them and humming softly before standing up just as suddenly and turning to walk over to a cabinet in the corner of the room.

After a few moments spent collecting some papers, she walks back over while fastening them to a clipboard before settling back into her chair. An absent twist of her hand has a pen spinning into it that she clicks audibly and prepares to write before looking back over to Haruka, "Well then...given the circumstances, I know that you might be somewhat reluctant to recount the specifics of your situation...but the more details you can give me, the easier it will be to figure out what solutions we have available...not least of which being 'Are we going to have to deal with an assault charge?'"

And just like that, with that 'we', it becomes clear that she's fully on your side in this matter.

Oh, if asked, she'd make some comment about taking care of those under her charge...but on a level below that of the conscious, she's feeling that twinge of connection, too.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    "I don't think so?" she says, finishing off the candy bar, balling up the wrapper, and shooting it basketball-style across the room perfectly into a wastebasket. This also makes her smile. Okay, she can still do everything cool. She interlocks her fingers behind her head and flops backwards. "I mean, I think really they'll be glad to be rid of me." she admits. "I've never been the daughter they wanted. Too bad, so sad. They made that choice a bunch of times. You know they tried to throw out all of the uniforms I got for this place when they weren't all skirts? Do they not even see how good I look in this?" She says. "You see it, right? Oh wait you probably can't answer that pretend I didn't ask." Awkward.

    "Anyways, yeah. We kind of had a fight, I may have punched someone who deserved it, but they were fine after. Didn't do it as hard as I could, just. Not really proud of it. Or, not entirely proud of it." she says, sighing. "Anyways, I don't think they'll want to do anything regarding an assault charge. It'll just further make it clear to everyone I'm not who they wanted me to be, all of that. Really they want me out of their hair, and I don't want to be in it. I'm just not sure how best to go about it." she admits. "I guess this is really an issue more for Inai-sensei but I'm not sure if she's really the 'legal problems' type either. This school is pretty ritzy, do we have a lawyer maybe? Is that a thing?"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou smiles amusedly and takes a moment to conceal a small giggle behind her hand, "Yes, Miss Tenoh, it would be quite inappropriate to comment beyond perhaps saying that you wear it well." She shakes her head, "...though judging by the number of heads I see turn when you walk the halls, I can say that you likely have little to fear in that regard in any case."

She absently goes over a few things on her paperwork, checking off things here and there and scribbling a note or two as she proceeds. As she does, she sighs and shakes her head, "...honestly, I fear I will never understand the impulse in this time and place for people to not accept people for whom they are. I understand the impulse to positively influence the development of someone you're responsible for...but to be so short-sighted as to be unable to tell that you're trying to twist whom they ARE into who you WANT them to be...madness."

Another shake of her head, "...in any event, under normal circumstances, yes...this kind of thing is a bit more under Inai-san's perview...I'm quite sure I can make the case for an intervention under medical reasons alone if you'd rather involve as few people as possible."

She sits back and gives Haruka a bit of an intense look, "Now you have several choices...we can just file papers to move you in here and do nothing overtbut that does mean that legally, your family still does have some hold over you for a while yet...or, since you're old enough, if you want to make a more severe break, you can go the emancipation route. It's would take a bit more time, and there would be lawyers involved...but from the way it sounds, we can likely minimize your direct involvement and perhaps even work in a restraining order of some kind pending the resolution."

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    "Honestly, yeah. I think I don't want to make a big deal out of any of this." It might give the wrong information to people. At the very least, it would hamper her ability to tell the story she wants to tell about herself. To be the her that she wants to be, without other things clogging up people's minds. She leans back forward and taps her chin with a finger.

    "I'm not really worried about their opinions anymore, other than in the sense that they can use them to annoy me." she admits. "They can live in the stupid past, or whatever. I'm not going to change who I am to make other people happy." She crosses her arms. "So yeah, if you can deal with this that's good too. I think... emancipation, that's a... strange word to use in this circumstance but. The outcome sounds like what I want. If you don't mind helping anyways."

    She looks around the room. "I can't think this is the sort of thing you were expecting to deal with today. Probably just bruises and cuts, right?" she asks. "So I appreciate it."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou gives a little smile and shrugs, "Don't feel bad about that. Frankly, I've had FAR too much boredom in my life. I could use a spot of something different...so the appreciation is mine."

She then nods and sighs, "That said, I'm glad you're taking this as well as you are." She hrms to herself, then tilts her head and pitches her voice to carry a bit differently as she continues to fill out paperwork, "Niti-chan. Please print me a copy of the records for Tenoh, Haruka."

Off in the corner, a printer begins printing papers, "Anything else, Nurse Meiou?" "Yes, Niti-chan...email to Kyuketsuki-san. Subject: Call me. Body: Please call me at your earliest convenience. Sign it. Send." "Done, Nurse Meiou. Anything else?" "That will be all, Niti-chan"

Truth be told, all Niti is is a bunch of off the shelf Google Assistant parts coupled with some clever custom scriptwork that the nurse set up...but it often goes well towards selling the 'cutting edge' feel of the place.

She then smiles and says to Haruka, "It's my pleasure, dear." A moment later, she frowns, "...I take it all you have at the moment is the clothes on your back?"

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    Haruka is not tech savvy, unless that tech has wheels and can go very fast, so she's at least slightly impressed by the Assistant. Her eyes go wide for a moment before she returns to her calm demeanor. She's past a lot of the shock of this morning and now thanks to Meiou-sensei she's starting to get something like a plan too. So she's not as disrupted as she was when she walked in.

    "I mean I grabbed a suitcase too. But, mostly, yeah. I've got some money in an account, actually, that they don't know about. I... thought I might need it, guess I was right?" she asks, smirking now.

    "So... I think I'll be alright. It's mostly the short term I'm worried about. I'm really good at a lot of things, and handsome to boot, worst case I could work at a conbenie or something, right?" she grinned. "The trouble's just making sure I have somewhere to rest. That's why I was asking about the dorms." she conceeds. "But I also don't want to impose. It's all sudden."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou blinks and looks up from her paperwork at Haruka, "Need money? For what?" She pauses, then frowns, "...classes are over at the moment...it will take a day or two for the paperwork to start going through, so without parental approval, you'll need someplace to stay until then."

She hrms a bit more in thought, "...any hotel around here would wipe out your liquid reserves far too much..." A true enough statement...this IS the heart of one of the most expensive cities in the world, after all.

The nurse's frown then deepens a bit, "...and anyplace further out would be rather a crapshoot as far as availability." Another beat, then she keeps thinking out loud (probably for your benefit so it doesn't feel like she's making decisions FOR you), "...and while getting you into a dorm here tonight is theoretically doable..."

She trails off for a moment, then looks more directly at Haruka, "...if we go that route, I'm quite afraid keeping it beyond notice would be rather impossible. Nothing in the known universe travels faster than gossip...the rumour mill would be chewing on you within an hour...by tomorrow several dozen wild theories would most certainly be flitting about." She shakes her head, "I'm afraid it's the downside of cutting such a figure as you do, Miss Tenoh."

She then taps her chin, "...I suppose if you want, you can crash at my place. I certainly have the room, so you wouldn't be a bother."

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    Haruka grits her teeth a little bit. Since she's talking it all out, it -helps- but it doesn't mean she likes any of the words she's saying really. She sighs. And then folds her hands in her lap and looks at Setsuna. "Meiou-sensei, there's no way you can convince me that crashing at your place isn't a bother." she says, rather firmly. "Teachers are not expected to open up their lives and their homes to their students, even in times of crisis." she shakes her head. "So it is a bother, it's just one you're saying that you're willing to shoulder."

    She laughs a little bit. "Your bedside manner is a little too good. I think if you were anyone else I have ever met I wouldn't even be considering it. Even now I can come up with several reasons not to. We do not know each other - I have hardly been a student at this school for very long. As you say, I cut a 'figure' and people know who I am, which means I'd what, have to sneak into your house?" she asks, half-smirking, but it's not so much a positive facial expression this time.

    "I should be telling you no, taking a bow, and letting you know I'll be checking back in with you each morning. And find my own way around. Even if that does leave me with no saved money or in a difficult situation." she continues. "I didn't come here to impose on you, in any way, and here you are offering your own personal help and then even more help."

    But, all of the coolness, confidence, and energy being there, she was also a 15 year old girl who'd stormed out of her own house with no intent on ever returning. "I'm still sitting here, though. Just like before when I stood up to leave and sat back down..." she says, self-introspectively. "I don't want to ask for help or impose. But I think right now that's my only choice, unless I want to go back to them, which I very much do not."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou shakes her head a little, smiling a mischevious little smile. She's FAIRLY certain that Haruka is likely to change her mind a little when she sees where Setsuna lives...then she blinks and looks over at the paperwork of Haruka's transcripts...

Whereupon her grin gets larger and much more genuine as she gets an idea to help ease the reluctance Haruka is feeling.

"Well, a thought occurs. When I purchased the place I'm in, it was part of an estate sale and came with a garage. I know there's a car in there, but I've never learned to drive and know next to nothing about cars. I've been meaning to have someone who knows automobiles to look at it and tell me what I have, but, frankly I haven't been able to find a good subject matter expert." She then holds up the clipboard, "...however it mentions here you've an interest in racing. Perhaps you could do me the favor of telling me what I have?"

Perhaps it's a sop to the conscience. Perhaps it's a way to feel like not accepting charity. Perhaps it's knowing what magic words to say.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    Having a mystery car for Haruka is pretty much like telling Usagi you have a mystery cake and you just need her to try it. She *lights up*. She hasn't been allowed near a car for a while - not that she hasn't been in and even driven one since The Incident, it's just been forbidden. And no more fun go-karting. So it's actually been a little bit since she has. She actually has to calm herself down and maintain that external coolness she tries to exude. But Setsuna will see it.

    "I mean. I guess. At the least I could tell you, right?" she offers. "It feels like that might be a fair trade for the help you've given me here today." She offers. She's still not accepting the 'crashing at Meiou-Sensei's place' offer directly. She's framing it as a thank you for today's help.

    But on some level - even if Haruka isn't admitting it - this is her accepting the sop to her conscience. This is her accepting Setstuna's offer of help. Even if she's doing it in the way that lets her maintain her pride externally.

    "And if anybody asks why I'm there - well, we have a good answer, right? So no worries about anybody starting weird rumors about you, either." Haruka adds. And that was one of her truthful concerns - if she ended up with negative rumors started about the person helping her as a part of avoiding them for herself, that wouldn't be good!

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Nurse Meiou nods, "Well, then. Give me a few moments to lock up, and I'll take you out to have a look. While cars have never been my 'thing', I'll admit to a little curiousity as to what's in there." She pauses, then thinks for a moment, then says, "For the sake of keeping the rumor mill from getting ideas, I'd suggest you go on ahead and wait for me just outside the school gates while I shut things down here."

And with that, she proceeds to begin packing up papers, locking cabinets and the like, finally stepping out and locking the main door about fifteen minutes later. At which point she turns and walks out and collects Haruka should she elect to wait outside, "The train station is just up ahead and I live a few stops down the way and a short walk from that station."

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Cue a brief travel montage of the two walking through a train station, boarding a train...a shot of the two sitting on the less packed early-evening train...then getting off and walking down some residential streets. Residential streets with some VERY EXPENSIVE LOOKING houses. Mansions might be a better term.

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Nurse Meiou walks up to one particularly nice mansion and fiddles with a control on the main gates that causes them to open. Gesturing for Haruka to go ahead, she follows behind and seemingly opens the front door with a snap of her fingers.
(Actually, she's got a remote concealed in her off hand, but she's showing off.)
She walks inside, deposits her handbag on a little table just inside the door for such and then leads you through the rather large place to a door off to the side, "Here we go. The Garage."

She opens the door and leads the other woman inside...and it looks like she was fibbing just a little. There's not one car, apparently there are three, all of them under tarps that conceal what they are fairly well.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    "Works for me." Haruka says, standing up and throwing her hands behind her head, basically walking out like she's reclining in the air as she does so.

    During the whole little travel montage, Haruka shifts visibly from being chill and relaxed to being slightly discomforted. Occasionally looking at Setsuna, occasionally firmly looking anywhere BUT at Setsuna.

    But her eyes are big once again as they walk through the upper-class area. "So, your place is on the other side of all of this? Must be awkward walking through it." But it turns out Setsuna's place isn't on the other side of all of this, but smack dab in the middle. Whenever Setsuna turns to look at Haruka she's trying to look very chill, but whenever Haruka thinks she's not being watched by Meiou-sensei, she's letting her mouth hang open a bit and she's absolutely kind of taken aback. Finally, she adds. "...I see now why you said it wouldn't impose much. Your place is big enough I think I could stay on one side of the house and yell and you might not even hear me." she said. Well, it's not THAT big, but it's also absolutely a sprawling thing.

    Haruka follows her in. She's about to ask Setsuna if the cars even exist when she is shown the way to the garage - which is wild, for Haruka - and she looks at the three cars. "So which, uh, is the one you wanted me to take a look at? Because you said uh. One."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Just after stepping into the house, Nurse Meiou shed her everpresent labcoat, revealing herself to have been wearing a casual brown pants/skirt combo...but oddly enough, she doesn't kick off the high heels she'd been wearing all day. As she kicks the lights on and sees the three cars, she frowns a little, then shakes her head at the comment from Haruka, "That's what it had said on the documents. Frankly, I hadn't even done more than glance into this room, and not fully at that.

She sighs and shrugs, "I confess all I did was open the door enough to see that there was a car there and took that as good rather than looking all the way in and seeing the others." She looks over at Haruka, "Well, if you don't mind, I'd kind of like your educated opinion of all of them if it's not too much of a bother."

She pauses for a moment, then nods, "Well, I suppose we should see what we can see, then."

That said, she steps over to the closest to the door, grabs the tarp and yanks, pulling it off...

To reveal a silver '66 Corvette Stingray convertable with the top up.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    "That seems a little bit of a waste, to be honest." Haruka admits, looking into the garage. "Are you then, terribly busy at work? I don't know much about the life of the school nurse, but I suppose it must be stressful, especially when you add dealing with people like me on top of the medical stuff." she says, as she walks in and lets out a low whistle.

    But that's nothing compared to the outright profanity that Haruka lets fly when Setsuna actually pulls the tarp off the car. "Shimatta." she says. She turns to Setsuna and jabs her thumb in the direction of this. "I shouldn't even be considering touching this, much less driving it. How did the previous owners here keep an American Muscle car like this from the estate, it's mind-boggling." Haruka admits.

    "Forget driving this thing, do you know what this is worth? You could sell it and buy a few brand new cars." She turns and looks at the other two tarps. "Man, I wonder what's under the other two."

    Then she pauses and turns back to Setsuna. "Okay nevermind forgetting driving this thing, before you sell it or whatever I would LOVE to drive it." she says, putting her hands together. Haruka's eyes are practically sparkling.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
A shrug is given, "Eh, to be honest, this is about the least stressful job I've had in a while. Oh, I suspect I might get the occasional laceration and broken bone here or there once the school year really gets under way, but that kind of thing is really simple stuff." She then grins, "And truly, Miss Tenoh, you're not difficult to deal with."

Setsuna is watching Haruka's responses to seeing the car, "Well, as I recall, the paperwork listed the car as an 'old Chevrolet'. Is that not what this is?"

Truly, the depths of her lack of knowledge about cars is clearly on view...but then so is her mischievious streak as she says, "Well, I imagine that you'll probably have to take these for a test drive as part of your evaluations."

One might accuse her of dangling a carrot for Haruka...but honestly, she's just enjoing seeing the delight on the face of a young woman who had come to her in a state of distress a few hours earlier.

Stepping over to the next tarp, she whips it away and frowns, "...well, that's an odd color for a car."

In point of fact, it IS kind of an odd color, as the car revealed is painted powder blue with a pair of white racing stripes up the middle and two cherry red teardrop shaped accents coming up from the headlamps. But that's probably because whomever had this before had gotten a Ford GT40 and decided to have it painted to match the scheme Ken Miles wore when he set the Le Mans record.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    "I can't imagine what else you might have dealt with. Teenagers have to be high stress." Says Haruka, the teenager. She looks over the Stingray like she both wants to touch it and is afraid to do so.

    Haruka, to her credit, rolls with the mischevious part of Setsuna better than a lot of the rest of her more recent situations. "I mean it's not an evaluation if I don't at least spend some time behind the wheel." Or a lot of time. Or...

    Well, Haruka holds herself up well until the next reveal. She makes a very un-Haruka-like almost squeal and then has almost forgotten the Stingray for the GT40. She's a little bit staggered. "Do... do you... no, you don't know what you have here." She says, pointing at the car. "This was the first American car to win..." she actually manages to keep herself from just yammering and losing her mind. "... I mean I'll just say that there's probably not another one of these in Japan." she says, pointing downward at the car and kind of, her feet are ancy, moving quickly.

    "Like... I'm gonna have to make sure this is real and not just a display because... if it's what it looks like... I would be lucky to even see one, sit in one, much less drive one in a parking lot or something."

    Well, she's forgotten all about her troubles, in the moment. All she wants to do is crack the hood and drive these cars. She's not worried about imposing, at least. And then her eyes go to the very last tarp. "This is going to either be something amazing or it's going to be the former owner's real car and like a Focus or something." she says, and she can feel her heart beating, and for the first time in so long she's not worried about anything else. She's in her happy place. Or what will later be revealed as one of her happy places.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
A hand comes up to cover Setsuna's lower face...but it's quite clear from the crinkle of her eyes that she's grinning fit to burst. Haruka's enthusiasm for the cars is a bit infectious at this point. Finally she can't hold it back and she lets out a quiet little giggle at Haruka's antics...but a glance will make it clear that there's no malice behind things. She shakes her head, "Well, I'm more than happy to let you work on these if you want. They'll just sit here and gather dust otherwise."

She then frowns a little in thought, "...and you know, I think things like these were made to be USED. The way you're talking about them, I gather they're kind of ur examples of whatever kind of car...and just hiding them seems like a waste to me."

That said, she shrugs, "Well, one more. Let's see what it is."

She grabs the last tarp and pulls it back...and it seems the pattern established earlier with American Car manufacturers is continued...as the first was a GM, the second was a Ford...and this last car IS a Dodge...unlike the other two which both hailed from the same model year, this one's significantly newer. To the point, it's a Dodge Viper ZB1...the one designed by Osamu Shikado.

Setsuna looks over it for a moment and shrugs, "Well, this one looks rather newer."

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    Haruka goes quiet. She looks "I guess..." she begins, looking from the newly unveiled cars to the two others ones, "...well I guess if these are the three cars in your garage this is the closest thing that qualifies for a day-to-day car. I don't feel like I'm committing some sort of sacreligious act by touching it, anyways."

    Haruka has mostly calmed her inner squealing gear-geek and is just walking from car to car, still taking it all in. Setsuna might have noticed her pinching herself. A couple of times. "Yeah, it's newer." she says, as though somehow that sums things up. "How does a school nurse end up with a house like this that has cars like this?" she finally asks, incredulous. She almost leans on the hood of one of the cars and stops herself, almost jumping away. Then she starts to walk over to Setsuna. "This is crazy. This is so insane. And you..." Something about Haruka makes her... react poorly to people she's suspicious of.

    "On the one hand I feel like I should be grateful to you for helping me and even letting me come in here and see all of this. But it's also so much, too much." She puts a hand on her hip and looks at Setsuna. "Is this what I've been feeling about you since I met you? That there's just something off? Are you even a nurse?" she asks. She doesn't even know what she's accusing Setsuna of right now. Being an international jewel thief or something maybe? "Whenever I'm around you it feels like there's more than meets the eye. That there's something I'm not seeing." she says. And the giddy, geargeek schoolgirl has left for the moment, replaced by a part of her she couldn't even yet place.

    "What aren't you telling me?" she asks, a question Setsuna likely can't answer. Even still her eyes roam to the cars occasionally. Like there's a magnet attached to them. "Or at least can you admit I'm not crazy and -something- is going on?"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Setsuna once again smiles at Haruka's reaction to the cars. She looks back and forth at the three, then points to the Stingray, "Really? I'd have thought that one would be more practical to drive around in. At least, it looks roomier." She shrugs.

Then Haruka's suspicion starts to kick in and she arches an eyebrow. Her grin gets a bit more wry as she says, "To be perfectly fair, I was rich BEFORE I was a Nurse, not the other way around." She shakes her head, "Sadly, you're right about a normal nurse's salary not being enough for all this...but to answer your question, yes, I AM a fully qualified, licensed and certified nurse."

Still, Haruka's suspicion is rather...interesting...and it's a part of her that is quite intense and extra serious.

The taller woman narrows her eyes and pulls herself up to her full height (which, due to the heels is for practical purposes about 6 feet) and gives Haruka a bit of a searching look. For the moment, she says nothing, but she's wondering. She's been keeping an eye out for Destiny...but until now, it hadn't occured to her that Destiny could just as well be screwing with her personally as much as it would be screwing with the rest of the Princess' court. The question then becomes, now to confirm without putting herself somewhere where she would say too much if she were wrong. She has no particular powers geared towards divination or revealing the unseen...but maybe...maybe she can send a ping, as it were. Thus, she folds her arms as she stares...and, concealed by her body, she reaches into her dimensional pocket and grabs her henshin wand...but doesn't transform. Instead, she calls up her transformation just to the EDGE of needing to call the phrase and holds there. Without transforming, her access to her power is rather limited...but if she does what she can to raise the ambient magic in the room, she can see if there is any kind of reaction from the blonde...which will then give Setsuna information about what, if anything, she should reveal.

"What am I not telling you? What is going on? Those are very pointed questions, Miss Tenoh...though, I'll grant, not ones without merit."

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    "But something is going on." She replies. Outside, it sounds like the wind is howling through the trees of Tokyo, a storm impending, a typhoon. She matches Setsunas eyes with her own, searching. She doesn't know what she's searching for. She doesn't know what she's missing. Who she's missing. Or even who she is. But in that momnent she is steadfast, defiant, unbreaking.

    The woman standing in front of her is the second-closest to her, the second-most common Guardian she interacted. Both of them performing mostly-lonely duties. But while Pluto was used to being alone, Uranus was half of a duo. The winds were chaotic, but the girl couldn't feel the oceans.

    The hairs on the back of Haruka's neck stand up and the room is unearthly quiet for a while. The magic isn't something she can sense, and the effects it has are subconscious. It makes her more stern. It makes her regard Setsuna more seriously.

    And finally she asks, even more pointedly. "You've been very helpful to me. Why? Would you let anyone come here and offer them a chance to drive cars like this? I don't... feel like you're a threat to me." she admits. "But I feel like you are a threat, or could be." she continues. "If not to me, to others. That's not something I'd expect from a school nurse."

    She pauses. "I don't know what's going on. Maybe I don't want to. But I just walked away from everything I've had or known. And yet I'm so at ease, here, and at ease with you. And something is still wrong. I don't even know how or why these can be both true."

    And she pauses. "You can't tell me though, or you would have. Right?"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Setsuna's problem is rather different. She does feel a bit of connection, true...but unlike the rest of the Senshi, she had THOUSANDS of years of waiting to do. Thousands of years of boredom and time and lonliness and madness playing hob with her memories. The damage she took from the discharge of the Gates failing didn't help. Neither are the various powerful concealment magicks at play.

She KIND of feels a connection...but she doesn't know whether to trust it as anything more than lonliness seeking to just be near another human."

After a few moments of intense scrutiny, she sighs. Still concealed, she dismisses her henshin pen and relaxes visibly, "Miss Tenoh..."

She pauses, visibly picking her words carefully, "...there are layers of things going on. And right now I'm having to decide what I CAN say and what I SHOULD say." She waves a hand, "Which is not to say that I WON'T necessarily tell you anything...but I will have to be very careful about it. Just...give me a bit to work out what I can and cannot say."

Mainly because...she's searching for some way to confirm or deny things without getting her hopes up.

As the man said...hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a woman mad.

After a few moments, she goes on, "However, yes. I'm not *JUST* a school nurse...and *YES* I CAN be quite a threat...but also *YES*, I could never be a threat to you. Or any of those in my charge."

She takes a deep breath, then blows it out and nods, "That said, none of that has anything to do with your current housing situation." She turns and walks into the house, indicating that Haruka follow, and she leads to a well-appointed kitchen. Most of it looks like it doesn't see much use...aside from the microwave, air fryer, fuzzy rice maker, and what appears to be a SINFULLY expensive-looking coffee machine that probably can make anything you can think of.

Setsuna plops herself down on a stool on one side of the kitchen's island and waves the other woman to a stool across it from her, "...as you may have noticed, I have more money than I can realistically spend...which means that donating the time of my lawyer for the good cause of helping a young woman with a bad home situation is such a trivial endeavor that it's barely worth mentioning. Similiarly, you've probably noticed that I'm rattling around this place like a washer in an old coffee can." She gives you a flat look, "I am FAR too young to be a spinster."

She then smiles just a bit, "As it just so happens, you are in need of an address while your emancipation paperwork goes through..."

She then grins a bit wider, "SO! I am willing to rent you a room until such time as you can legally be without a guardian for the low, low price of you getting those three cars into working order."

She extends her hand to shake, "I can have proper paperwork drawn up if you wish, but do we have a deal?"

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    Haruka follows. And she doesn't entirely trust Setsuna, but she doesn't entirely NOT trust her either. She chews on her inner cheek to keep quiet while she lets Setsuna both explain and not explain. She cannot HELP but add a comment unrelated to anything else. "Meioh-sensei, if you end up a spinster it would only be by your choice. Rich and beautiful is not generally a combination of traits that makes it hard to find a relationship. It's finding a worthwhile one that might be hard, but not finding one in general." She notes. And she notes it with a very her smirk. No hostility. Just a little bit of brattiness, if anything. And much like most of what Setsuna is saying - it's much more mundane and therefore soothing, compared to the moment of eyes-locked, beating-around-a-bush talking they just spent in the garage.

    "I'll get those cars into working order. It'd be hard to keep me out honestly." she admits. Still smirking. Still settling back into her armor. She sits down across from Setsuna. "It's a good thing you have such good information on me in my file, though. Otherwise it would seem a little crazy to let a student work on such priceless machines." she notes. "But then again, it seems like they matter less to you than they did to me, or their previous owner." She pauses. "Not in an insulting way, just noting it. You obviously have your own things that draw your attention. Like coffee..." she says, because of course she noticed the professional-tier monstrosity. She'll probably figure out how to use that soon too.

    She reaches out and shakes Setsuna's hand, and there's just a moment... which she actually mumbles about. "Deja vu." she says, under her breath and blinking her expressive eyes. But much louder. "Alright, we've got a deal. The cars will run... great, whether they do or not. And I'll stay in your guest room and we'll work out the paperwork." And Haruka would, perhaps, only snoop a LITTLE bit. Out of politeness. "I do really appreciate your help." she says, standing up to offer Setsuna a polite, if maybe not very deep, bow, her hands clasped in front of her. It's... a little awkward, like she doesn't offer those bows or thanks to people very often at all.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
For her part, Nurse Meiou stands up and does you the courtesy of formally returning said bow. Then she stands up, smiles and points down one hallway, "Entertainment room with the big TV and good sound is down that way..." She turns and points in another direction, "Downstairs bedrooms are through there, pick wichever one you want. Each one should have an attatched bath. So go on and pick one, off you pop."

She seems to consult an internal clock, "I'll order some takeout for us after you get cleaned up."