| [Oct. 19th, 2015|12:02 am] |
She eyed him. “No sarcasm? No disbelief?”
“I hear responsibility can help people grow,” he said.
“That’s more like it,” she said, happily, and kicked him (very gently and affectionately) in the ankle.
He drawled, “Of course, some people start shorter than others.”
An indirect insult and a dig about her height. Kakashi was in fine form. She whistled a cheerful little tune and led them onwards.
The Akimichi barbeque hosted a large bar that was as popular with the restaurant patrons as the yakitori special. Ryouma was waiting there for them with one elbow propped on the marble counter. He raised a hand in acknowledgment when Kakashi and Katsuko started picking their way through the dinner crowd toward him, but his dark head remained bent in conversation with the bartender, who (judging by the twinkle in the woman’s eye) was in the process of being completely charmed.
Kakashi rolled his eye. "I'll find a table. If you can extract him from his conquests, tell him to bring food." He made a beeline for the back of the restaurant, where it was darker and quieter, before Katsuko could reply.
“Get us a booth!” she called after his retreating back, and set her course for the bar.
Akimichi Honoka was an ex-jounin in her early thirties who had retired to bartend at her family’s restaurant after an accident had taken her left hand and the hearing in her right ear. She wore a cunning, intricate prosthetic with jointed fingers that had blades hidden underneath the porcelain nails. She also kept trying to set Katsuko up with her twin brother, Daichi, but since she slipped Katsuko extra meat skewers from the kitchen whenever the head chef wasn’t paying attention, she was still in the top ten list of Katsuko’s favorite people.
“Honoka-san!” Katsuko said happily, coming up beside Ryouma to bump her good shoulder companionably against his arm. “It’s been a while. Mind if I steal my teammate from you? He’s so tall he needs to be fed well, or he’ll die.”
"You abandoned me," Ryouma complained. His arm was warm against her shoulder. "I've been waiting nearly an hour. You've only got Honoka-san's beauty — and her cocktails — to thank that I haven't succumbed already."
“I’m always happy to save a gentleman in distress,” Honoka said, smiling. Her voice was warm and raspy, welcoming like the burn of hot sake during winter. Akimichi always had hair that tended towards bright orange and spiky; she’d kept the spikes, but added streaks of red that made it look like she had a mane of fire spilling down her back. She had a towel in her flesh hand and a glass in the metal one that she was wiping down. “Especially this particular gentleman. It’s not often I meet men taller than me. Or men so charming, for that matter.” |
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