Katsuko's abrupt about-faces often left Ryouma blinking in her dust, but he was finally beginning to catch the tells: the slight shift of muscles during team practices, the flicker of her eyes in conversations. He suspected it would take him much longer to learn to keep up.

Hakone, unburdened by prior context, answered easily enough. "Prawn curry, extra basil." He was balancing several opaque plastic cups on the lid of one of the deep-bowled cafeteria take-out dishes, with several disposable spoons caught like throwing senbon between his fingers. "I picked up some almond puddings, too."

He paused beside the planter, hands full, and lifted an eyebrow. Ryouma hastily reached up to help unload. Hakone sank down on the near leg of the U-shaped planter and accepted his curry back in exchange for two spoons. "Sorry that took so long," he added, peeling the lid off and dropping it on the ground. "There was an argument between one of the Akimichi agents and the head chef about something involving soy protein flour."

Ryouma handed an almond pudding off to Katsuko. "Allergies?" Genma'd mentioned being allergic to spinach, but he couldn't imagine being allergic to soy. How did you eat?

"Nah, it was much more technical than that." Hakone bit off the head of a prawn and flicked the tail onto the upturned plastic lid by his foot. "Something about the variety of beans the protein had been harvested from, and whether the carbs-to-protein ratio was adequate."

On Ryouma's other side, Katsuko peeled back the lid of her almond pudding with her teeth, squeezed the bottom of the plastic cup, and devoured half of the protruding pudding in one bite.

And people looked askance at Ryouma's table manners. He was beginning to think he needed a chicken foot to gnaw on, just to fit in. He dug out his bowl of katsudon, instead.

They ate in companionable silence for a while. The sunlight fell warm and heavy on Ryouma's shoulders, soothing out the ache of strain that had wound his muscles wire-taut for days. The marks of Ayane's nails still burned, pleasantly, down his spine. He took a deep breath of the clean spring air, scented with curry and fried things, and felt a little more of the tension seep away.

Katsuko finished her first bowl of katsudon and started in on the second. She stole most of Ryouma's pudding, too, when he left it unattended for too long.

He couldn't feel any difference in the cheerful firestorm of her chakra—but then, he'd never felt any difference. Even after the demon mission, when he'd drained himself down to a candleflame flicker and Katsuko had created a score of shadow clones and wreaked devastation in wind and fire, he hadn't been able to sense a dimming of her blaze. Kakashi complained she was so bright it hurt, but Ryouma's chakra-sense wasn't that keen. She was a wildfire, but when she burped with content and leaned against him she warmed his whole side.

"Feeling any better?" he asked her.

"I feel great," she said easily, resting her head against his shoulder. Her eyes lidded in the sunlight. "Stolen food is the best food."

"Hey, I paid for everything else you ate." He poked her ribs. "Unless you just pocketed the cash and stiffed the food stalls, too."

She swatted his hand away indignantly. "You're supposed to be my pillow. Pillows don't poke."

"Pillows get poked," Ryouma agreed, and tipped his head back to smile into the sunshine.