Raidou had gone through the usual ritual following his and Genma's we-have-nothing-better-to-do-so-let's-hit-each-other-and-call-it-practice spar. It was always the same sort of ritual that preceded an evening spent with his best friend the night before a day with No Mission. He took a four minute shower and washed his hair with soap, accidentally ensuring it would maintain its bottlebrush appearance when it dried again. Cleaned his teeth thoroughly without the aid of a mirror, and used the same deodorant he always did--one guaranteed to keep him both sweat-free and scentless. Which was everything a shinobi could ask for, really.

It had been a good spar. Spars, actually. A short, fast-paced warm-up designed to reveal if either one of them was hiding an injury that would make them call the whole thing off--something that had happened once or twice, resulting in the now sacred Warm Up ritual--and a longer, slower, and infinitely more satisfying dance between men at the raw peak of their game. Raidou had won, but he hadn't missed the opening Genma had given up to take the fall. Genma hadn't thrown the fight--they'd both given up a lot of similar strikes that could've ended the fight and probably their friendship along with it--but Raidou still appreciated the gesture.

Clothes weren't generally something he spent much time thinking about, but standing buck-naked in front of his small closet, he found himself engaged in a minor threads debate. Eventually he decided to forgo underwear--something he generally did when he wasn't mission bound and required something to hold his cup in place--and settled for a pair of loose jeans, a shirt, and an old, soft sweater in a dark blue he'd never admit to liking. His rings and dogtags were already in place. He tucked away his weapons--just the basics, a few kunai and shuriken, and a couple tags slipped into one pocket on the basis of surprise being a ninja's very best friend--and added a slim paperback to his back pocket just because.

He locked up his apartment, made it three steps, and then went back to change his shirt. Then he locked up again, walked the nothing distance to Genma's door, and let himself in with a perfunctory rap of knuckles against the wood. "Ready to go, lover boy?"

Genma looked nice in blue.

Genma spit, rinsed, spit again, turned off the tap, and wiped his freshly-shaven face on a hand towel. "Ready," he agreed with a grin, straightening up and giving his hair one last go over with a comb. It was all but dry now, and lying sleek and shiny thanks to the conditioner. He grabbed his wallet off his dresser and shoved it into a hip pocket.

Raidou looked pretty typical, swimming in baggy-fit clothes, such an odd contrast to their skin-tight mission gear. But comfort was comfort, and the loose-hipped swing to Raidou's walk when he was in civvies said more than enough about which clothing he preferred.

Sandals were the last thing. Genma slipped his feet into the pair of regulation black ones at the door. In uniform or out a ninja wanted shoes he could safely race across rooftops in, and ANBU footwear was definitely some of the best.

"So," Genma said, holding the door open for Raidou to step through, setting a few traps and seals as they shut it behind them. "Where are we going for dinner?"

Raidou hooked his thumbs into the back of his waistband, and paused mid-step while he waited for Genma to get locked up. "I was thinking curry," he said, with a casual shoulder shrug. It wasn't an idle choice; Genma, when he was fit and healthy, would cheerfully walk over hot coals for an equally hot curry, and Raidou would just as cheerfully veto the idea, not being much of a fan of spicy foods. But... well, he could go with it for once. Besides, he'd won the spar, so he got to chose dinner. That was how it worked.

He chose dinner a lot.

"There's a new place on the corner of Silver Street," he continued, setting off down the hallway at an easy lope. "Aoba mentioned it was pretty good. We could try there if you're up for something different?" Curry and a new restaurant with new, interesting people to look at. That practically had Genma stamped on it.

"You serious?" Genma asked with a pleased smile. "I'd love that. When Ao-chan was going on about it the other day and I was all, totally have to try that place, but then who wants to go get curry alone right? So I haven't been yet." The opportunity to go out to eat with someone other than Raidou actually had presented itself in the days since they'd heard Aoba wax eloquent about the delicate heat and perfectly balanced vegetables at the new curry place. But, well... It wasn't anyone Genma wanted to go with really. Besides trying a new place with Raidou would be a lot more fun than with some random hook-up. Although he'd still hooked up. But no dinner.

"If you're in the mood for curry, I'm all over that," Genma grinned. Raidou was hardly ever in the mood for curry. He liked healthy stuff. Fish. Vegetables. Even that boring ass tofu cubes in hot water stuff they specialized in at one of the Zen monasteries. The time Raidou had chosen that after a spar, Genma had just stared in disbelief. The monks brought a pot of water. They heated it up. They added cubes of tofu and a couple of extremely bland vegetables and a little seaweed. And just when Genma was really beginning to wonder when they were going to go get the soy sauce and maybe some miso and spices, they'd started ladling the stuff out. Unseasoned. Plain. Boiled. Tofu. At least there had been a bowl of ponzu to dip it in. But really, the rice had had more flavor.

Raidou crooked a half smile. "Wouldn't have offered if I wasn't in the mood," he pointed out with impeccable logic, and for once took the lead, falling into step slightly in front of Genma. It was probably better that way; Genma couldn't see the way his smile stretched to a wide, pleased grin for a moment, tugging the lines of his scar into a rippling wave. It was a pretty foolish expression, and he dragged it back into a much more normal one after a half-second. It was Genma's fault; his enthusiasm was infectious. "Besides, if I hear one more complaint about plain food, I'll cook you myself. Just for the peace."

It was cold outside of ANBU's HQ, with the sun just a faint, lingering presence on the horizon. The visible rim was a bright orange blaze, lit up like a fiery coin. Raidou blinked at it, and then let out a low whistle; the manly man's version of wow. There were other colours; indigos and deep-sea blues; tattoo-ink scarlets and a sort of plastic surgery pink that still went with the rest and blended into an artist's wet dream.

"Nice," he said, winning the award for blatent understatement as he hunched slightly into his sweater, drawing his shoulders up against the bitter cold sweeping in with the night.

The wind tore right through the thin cloth of Genma's shirt and he folded his arms up, shoulders hunched, hands tucked protectively close to his chest. "Damn," he said and at first it wasn't clear whether it was the impressive celestial display or the bitter cold he was commenting on. "Damn, Rai. That's just... Damn."

Beautiful sunsets were things poets wrote about. Things for haiku and uta kurata cards and long, saccharine-sweet odes from civilian schoolgirls. You wouldn't think a pair of soldiers would stand stalled on the stairs in front of a building full of their comrades and stare awestruck as the colors shifted and faded, deepening and darkening and growing gloomier and more contused over the course of nearly ten minutes. It took another icy gust of wind to finally draw Genma's attention away from the sky and to his own shivering.

"Damn. I think it's not really spring yet," he said, and wished he'd thought to grab a jacket.

Raidou glanced at Genma and felt his eyebrows draw down sharply, not so much at his friend's shivers--they were shinobi, they could handle a little cold--but at the way he'd drawn his hands in, curled against the fading heat of his skin. Cold, Raidou knew, was one of Genma's particular triggers, and nothing could ruin an evening faster then an ache that bloomed into something a whole lot worse. "Yeah," he echoed. "Damn."

He pulled his hands from his waistband and stripped his thick sweater off, suddenly grateful he'd changed from a thin tanktop to a warmer button-down shirt. It rode up with his sweater for a moment, slightly frayed hem grazing his naval before he twitched it back down. He tossed the sweater to Genma. "Here, before you go blue enough to match your shirt." He didn't wait for a protest, already hooking his hands back into his waistband and striding off down the street.

"Rai," Genma complained, chasing his friend down the street. But he put the sweater on, grateful for the warmth and for Raidou's gesture. Even if he didn't really need it. He could always have run back upstairs and grabbed a jacket and a pair of gloves after all. But he wasn't fool enough to turn Raidou down. And he'd seen the look on Raidou's face. It was a look he reserved for those times he was actually worried, as opposed to the scowl that meant, Genma, you're such an idiot or the one that meant, I screwed something up. No, the scowl Genma'd caught a glimpse of just before that sweater was peeled off, was the Oh shit, you're injured scowl.

Which of course Genma wasn't. And his hands only hurt a little.

He pulled the sweater, already too big on Raidou so even more so on himself, closer around himself, pulled his hands up inside the ends of too-long sleeves, and jogged to catch up to his friend.

"I'm not actually made of glass you know," he said, falling in step beside him. "And nice shirt, actually." It was dark iron grey, of a smooth, heavy fabric and cut trimly. It fit Raidou to a T. Maybe shivering and getting stuck wearing Raidou's sweater had some silver linings after all.

Not, of course that you noticed such things with your best friend, with whom you were not on a date.

"I know," said Raidou, wryly. He rolled his sleeve up, presenting a forearm dappled with bruises caused by blocking Genma's very un-glass-like fists and feet. "Don't bitch, it looks fine on you. Like a peadophile's bathhouse fantasy." The overlong sleeves and loose hem combined with the slipping neckline worked to make Genma look roughly fourteen. "You could add a whole new range to your repertoire, if you wanted to branch out on missions. I've probably got a few sweaters more lying around you can have--" he leaned around the punch to his shoulder with a wider grin and held his hands up in the universal 'I give, I give' gesture.

Then Genma's second comment caught up with his brain and Raidou glanced down at his shirt, failing to see anything special. It was just a grey shirt with black buttons. The buttons were a little shiny, he conceded, but that wasn't terribly fascinating. "Thanks," he said finally, willing to take the weird compliment at face--or shirt--value. "C'mon, lover boy, let's get there while there's still a good table left."

They were in luck, arriving at the restaurant just ahead of the crowd. A quiet table in a corner with good sightlines on all the entrances and exits was available, recently vacated by another pair of shinobi who had come in for an earlier dinner. The waitress seated them there without even considering other tables. There was a look some of her customers had, even in plain clothes, that told her they would tip her better, order more alcohol, and generally be happier diners, if they were sitting at that table. The paranoid-as-fuck jounin table, she and her co-workers called it after hours. Sometimes living and working in a military town was just weird.

Genma took the seat to Raidou's left, kitty-corner to his friend, and picked up the menu, looking at the photographs of the food as much as the descriptions. "Oooh how about Mangrove Country-Style Spicy Prawn Curry?" he asked, choosing the first one he'd come to with a five chili pepper rating.

Raidou would undoubtedly say no, that was alright. But if Genma buttered him up with a few of the really inedibly hot menu items at first, when Genma finally suggested something with a sedate three or four chilies, it would get a relieved, "Yes, let's have that one" from Raidou. Just like sparring, eating curry together came with a few rituals.

"Sure," said Raidou, without actually thinking. He glanced up when sudden silence met his acquiescence to find Genma giving him a did-you-sustain-recent-brain-damage? look and realized what he'd agreed to.

Ack, hot curry.

On the other hand, Genma was head over heels for his stupid curry, and Raidou was already here. Might as well do the thing properly if he was going to do it. Besides, he was a ninja, he didn't actually need his tastebuds. Not really. He was, however, going to need a lot more water. Or beer. Or anything remotely cold. "Yeah, let's get the prawn thing," he said, and was deeply gratified by the startled look that spilled across his friend's face.

Almost made it worth it, really.

You could tell, in a spar, when your partner made a mistake. There was a moment when the fluid motion would suddenly check or stutter. When an opening that shouldn't have been there was suddenly available. If you saw your sparring partner's face at just that moment, you'd see a sort of horrified realization pass through his eyes, and you'd know. He just fucked up, and he knows he fucked up. And then if he was good, like Raidou was good, for example, he'd turn that mistake into some other move.

Genma saw the mistake.

The thing about a mistake like that, in a real battle, where lives were on the line, if the enemy you were fighting made a mistake and you saw that look on their face, you struck. But in a spar with a peer, if you saw that look and struck, well, it bordered on the dishonorable.

Genma's eyes flicked over the menu quickly until he spotted another prawn dish. Four chilies this time. "I don't know," he said as if he'd only proposed the Mangrove Spicy Prawns as a very tentative idea. "Maybe this Sweet Treasures Spicy Prawns and Lobster would be better. I mean it has lobster. And it's fifteen ryou more, so it's probably better ingredients. Maybe we should get that one instead." He looked up at Raidou over the menu with an apologetic smile. "Although if you really have your heart set on the Mangrove Prawns, I'm sure they're awesome too."

Raidou gave his partner a mildly exasperated look, perfectly aware of what Genma was doing. A very small part of him that wasn't actually all set to go the death-by-fire route was grateful, but the rest of him pointed out that he'd made his choice and now he had to live with it. He wasn't the type of ninja--or man--to take the easy way out just because someone was willing to offer it.

Which probably explained a lot, really.

He raised an eyebrow at Genma, getting a perfect challenging curve. "Sure, lover boy, if you want to go with the weak stuff, you can. I'm good with the Mangrove."

The waitress came back over before Genma got the chance to talk him out of it.

When your sparring partner made an obvious mistake, and you deliberately didn't take advantage of it, and he made it again, the second time watching you carefully, taunting you with the opening he'd given you, there was really only one action you could take. Because that second time, it wasn't a mistake; it was an assertion that he was so damn good he could make a genin-level mistake, let you have the advantage of it, and still win the spar. Obviously, if you had any pride at all, you could not let that stand.

"So," Genma said, turning a devastatingly charming smile on the waitress, "my buddy and I really like a good, hot curry with a lot of complexity. We were thinking prawns. How's that Mangrove Country-Style one?"

The waitress blushed absolutely on cue, and looked down and to the right, then back at Genma with sparkling eyes. "You'll really like it," she said with enthusiasm. "It's definitely one of our more interesting dishes. And the chef lived in Mangrove for over five years, so you know it's authentic. He was an apprentice chef at the PawPaw Casino Hotel in the capitol."

"Excellent," Genma said, and leaned back, twisting his shoulders, straightening one leg a little, so his foot came out from under the edge of the table and just barely tapped her shoe. "We like it extra-spicy, right? No wimping out on the good stuff. We've both been to Mangrove, so we know how it should be."

The poor waitress blushed like she'd taken a bite out of a raw chili and shuffled away half a step at the seemingly accidental touch. "You don't have to worry about that, sir." She gave Raidou a shy glance as well. "The chef will be thrilled to have guests who can really appreciate his work," she said and giggled. Giggled!

Genma grinned with the deep satisfaction that comes from outmaneuvering your sparring partner. "Make sure you bring us a pitcher of whatever beer will complement the curry best," he added. He wasn't without mercy after all. And nothing tamed the heat of a hellfire curry like a good beer.

Should've seen that coming, Raidou thought, watching the waitress do exactly what all young serving staff did under the influence of Genma's carefully honed charm--melting was a good term for it. He completely missed the look she cast him, being far too busy not-glaring at his partner; it was one thing to engage in a minor battle of pride over curry, but entirely another to enlist backup in the shape of waitresses and bloody Mangrove-trained chefs.

He didn't say anything. If Genma quoted "there's no such thing as cheating at being a ninja at him" Raidou would be sorely tempted to kill him. He agreed with the sentiment, he just didn't like to hear it when he was losing.

On the other hand, there was such a thing as going down fighting.

"Excuse me, miss," he said, catching the waitress's attention. He was surprised when she blushed red and smoothed a hand over her mouth. He waited a beat until she had composed herself and pointed at an item on the menu. It was accented with five little chili markers. "You think we could get the Wave Country Peri-Peri Crab Soup as a starter? Might as well pick things up on the right beat." He smiled a half-smile, winning another giggle.

"No problem at all, sir!" She made a note, asked them if that would be all, and sailed off towards the kitchens.

"Nice girl," said Raidou, hoping the beer came served at ice-cube temperature.

Genma watched in quiet disbelief as Raidou self-destructed. At least that was how it looked to him. A spectacular fall from a throw that really shouldn't have done more than bruise him a little. He watched, and he thought about it, and then he laughed. "Cutting off your nose to spite your face, or are you actually coming around to my way of thinking about the hot stuff?" he asked. "Or was the waitress the hot stuff you were interested in?"

Raidou's blank look of utter disdain wasn't entirely unexpected. But it was kind of funny.

"I am," said Raidou with fragile dignity, "broadening my horizons. Don't stifle my self-expression." The curry was going to take care of that anyway; probably by relocating him to a pine box six feet under. At least it would be an honorable death--at his own spoon, even. Not quite a tanto, but close enough.

I am, thought Raidou with much less dignity, a complete idiot.

At least Genma seemed to be enjoying himself, judging by the laughter. Raidou kicked him gently under the table, winning a point for decent aim, if not adult maturity. He was winding up for another, harder kick when that only resulted in more laughter, but the waitress interrupted, sailing back from the kitchens to set a heavy pitcher of beer sweating droplets of icewater neatly on the table between them. Raidou offered up a small particle of praise that they really did know how to serve it properly chilled.

"Your soup's just going to be another two minutes," she informed them with a sweet little grin. "I told the chef how much you gents like things spicy, so he said he was going to toss a little extra in."

"Oh," said Raidou weakly, resisting the urge to crack his forehead against the linen covered table. "Good."

"Excellent," Genma said, and gave the waitress another of those grins capable of melting women (and not a few men) into a buttery little puddle. "Tell him we can't wait to try it. Buddy of ours recommended this place. Said you really redefined curry for Konoha." He wasted no time in pouring Raidou and himself each a tall golden glass of the brew. It was a deep sunshine amber, a little on the sweet side, with a rich, nutty flavor. Maybe a wheat beer, Genma thought. He approved. Sweet beers were always a good choice with curry. So far this place was proving to be as good as Aoba had said it was.

He didn't miss the look on Raidou's face. It was a look he'd seen more frequently in combat. Or sparring. Those times in their spars when Genma had managed some brilliant move and Raidou could tell in a split second that it was going to be Genma's turn to choose dinner that night. The fact that it only happened about a quarter of the time made that look all the more memorable.

"You know what would go really good with the soup?" Genma asked, just before the waitress could retreat. "Those crackery bread things with all the bubbles. Do you guys do those?" Beer and fried starch. That would definitely help take some of the bite out of the burn. If you were a fiery curry aficionado like Genma was, you had to know these little tricks.

"Of course," the waitress answered. "I'll bring them with the soup."

Beer, thought Raidou, pulling his glass closer. Focus on beer. You like beer. It's not a killer foodstuff. Not until the tenth glass at least, and by that point he wouldn't care anymore, anyway. If nothing else, at least he could get stunningly drunk--or get Genma stunningly drunk, which was a much easier prospect--and wouldn't care about death by tastebud assassination. Or death by tastebud suicide since, technically, he'd done this to himself.

He took a long swallow of slightly foamy goodness, momentarily surprised at the sweetness that chased the bitter flavour down his throat. He judged the taste for a moment, before deciding it weighed in on the side of tolerable, and set his glass back down, wiping his mouth absently with the back of one hand.

Definitely focus on the beer.

He was debating the merits of thanking his partner about the bread gesture--or at least not kicking him again--when the waitress fairly skipped back with two steaming bowls of napalm. Possibly laced with acid. He gave her a slightly wan smile as she set his down in front of him with a graceful turn of the wrist, and did the same for Genma.

"Anything else, sirs?"

"No, thanks," said Raidou, still looking at the molten streak of... something in his bowl. "I think we're all good here." He was going to lose all of his nasal hair if he so much as sniffed that, he just knew it. Possibly an eyeball, too.

Genma had no such qualms about the soup. In fact he was downright enthusiastic. He scooped up the oily yellow and orange broth with the ceramic soup spoon the waitress provided, and relished that first mouthful that eliminated any traces of protective coating from his mucous membranes. The second bite obliterated his senses with exquisite, scorching pain. By the third his eyes were tear-bright, his cheeks and chest flushed, and he was grinning like a fool. "This is great!" he said, and stirred his soup, fishing for chunks of crab and little floating spears of baby corn. "Aoba, was right, this place knows what they're doing with spices."

He gave Raidou a smile and raised his beer in a little salute, taking a long, satisfying sip. "The beer goes really good. She picked us a good one, don't you think?" Raidou, he noticed, had the look of a man facing eating a dish he knows has been poisoned. "Course, you probably don't want to fill up on broth before the main course," he added, disproving his words by happily slurping up another mouthful of the fiery liquid. "Luckily there's plenty of crab and veggies, if you stir it up a little. Bet they'd be good on the bread." He fished up a cluster of said goodies from his soup and turned them onto one of the bread wedges, biting into the whole affair with evident delight.

Gods, he hoped he wasn't going to be holding Raidou's head in an alley before the night was out. But he could easily see it coming to that. Stubborn, foolish, prideful man. Genma grinned at him. Good thing he was so damn fond of him.

In his relatively short--if fast-paced--life, Raidou had faced any number of challenges; training, graduating, surviving his genin team, surviving his journin-sensei, living through a war, a Hokage's death, a demon fox, his first, second, third, fourth, and fifth year in ANBU. Not to mention any number of nasty bastards aiming to fill his hide with sharp objects.

Currently the soup was slightly more terrifying.

Genma's newly acquired I'm-having-a-stroke look wasn't particularly reassuring, either. Raidou steeled himself. He was a ninja dammit. No bowl of liquid gut-fire was going to do what half a life spent living on the front lines had failed to. He was not going to flee spicy bits of crab!

He took a sip of beer--he didn't need the liquid courage, he was just... enjoying the taste--and lifted his spoon with the air of a man gearing himself for battle. He dipped it in the bile-coloured soup and stirred it carefully, unable to restrain a look of fascinated horror when a quagmire of unidentifiable chunks floated to the surface.

Oh, well, that was probably corn.

He hoped it was corn.

He scooped up a spoonful, wondered if his last words were going to be 'Oh god, I'm dying with my mouth on fire!', and bit the bullet. Or, rather, swallowed the soup.

For a moment there was perfect stillness.

Raidou blinked, set his spoon down very, very carefully, and reached for his beer. Half a glass later he regained the ability to breathe. He looked across the table at Genma and wiped his eyes on the back of his wrist. He smiled. "Not bad." Then he picked up his spoon again.

He was definitely going to die.

Raidou was clearly, Genma thought, watching his friend struggle with the soup, going to kill himself. And before the main course even came. That would be a waste. Not to mention Genma wasn't the sort of man to sit and watch a friend commit a pride-assisted suicide. He was also not the sort of man who would shame a friend, cause him to lose face, just to save him.

No the sort of man Genma was, was a ninja. When faced with a situation like the one before him, there was one obvious course of action. Cheat.

He started eating faster. That wasn't a hardship, really. He was hungry, and it was really excellent soup. There was cilantro, the baby corn, and some of those yellow mushrooms with the curly edges, maybe lemongrass. Plenty of chilies. And a base that suggested something sweet--possibly coconut milk. Plus it was just loaded with crab--sweet, juicy, cooked to perfection crab. By the time his bowl was empty, Raidou had managed maybe a fourth of his.

Genma frowned at his empty bowl. He picked it up and scraped at the bottom, tipping the dregs into his spoon. "Damn," he muttered, and cast a longing glance at Raidou's nearly full bowl. "That went really fast." He sighed heavily and picked up another of the bread wedges. "I suppose I can just eat these."

Raidou might've only been a fourth of the way through his soup, but he was two glasses of beer and three bread wedges down. The beer was definitely making the exercise a little more bearable, if only because it was starting to deaden his tastebuds. He was also getting back into the habit one learned drinking strong shots, spilling the unpalatable liquid to the back of his throat with a careful wrist flick, rather then letting it land on his tongue. He was marginally successful.

He was still going to die, but at least he was putting up a fight. He was also damn glad he'd taken the sweater off

And then Genma offered him a small patch of Nirvana. Wordlessly--mostly because his ability to speak had done the sensible thing and run away--Raidou picked up his bowl and handed it to his apparently insane friend, snagging a bread wedge as he pulled his hand back. He ate the bread, drank another third of a pint, and coughed once or twice.

Then the funny side of it hit him.

He blinked, chuckled, and propped his elbow on the table, resting his chin on his palm. He found a real smile this time, an uneven grin that lilted up one side of his face. "The next time I decide to voluntarily leap to my own destruction, you have permission to kneecap me."

Genma finished his first pint, poured himself a second, and happily dug in to Raidou's soup. It was rather intense, he had to admit, and he was glad to see Raidou willing to take his hint rather than do something stupid like suggest he order another bowl. When Raidou spoke, it was with the voice of a man who has spent all day attempting to learn a particularly difficult katon no jutsu. Genma chuckled.

"You sound like I did that time I blistered my larynx trying to learn that thousand fire balls jutsu," he said, and refilled Raidou's glass. That had been a painful experience. Aoba had taught him the jutsu, Raidou had watched and offered unhelpful critique like, Take deeper breaths and, Shit, Genma, don't swallow them! In the end Genma's lips and mouth had swollen so badly he'd been forced to seek out Kanae's aid, and hadn't been able to tolerate much besides fruit smoothies and yogurt for a week.

"I tried, Rai, I tried. But sometimes you just have to let the baby touch the kunai, you know? You gonna survive, you think? The rice that comes with the next course ought to help, but we could always order something a little milder as a counterpoint. Maybe the lamb with spring onions?" That was an absolutely unpeppered dish, and one Genma knew Raidou liked. And lamb and prawns would be a good pairing. If they ended up with a few leftovers, well, that's what refrigerators were for after all, and he and Raidou both had one. His even had plenty of room for styrofoam containers.

"Further proof," said Raidou, in his brand new thousand fire balls voice, "that this stuff isn't close to edible. It's not even training. It's like a test of willpower for the disturbed." He had a feeling the rasp was going to be sticking around for a while. Perhaps he'd scorched his vocal chords...

He ate another bread wedge--they were actually pretty good--to soak up a little of the alcohol in his stomach, and then negated that completely by taking another long swallow of beer. The sweet taste was actually really starting to grow on him. Either that or some fast mutation of the tastebuds had occurred out of environmental necessity. A kind of last ditch effort at self-defence against the Soup Of Liquid Fire Death.

Baby touch the kunai, huh? Raidou snorted and flicked a bit of bread at Genma, aiming for the chakra point set squarely between his eyebrows. "I'll survive," he said dryly, "It was deeply traumatic and I'll be looking up a therapist--which you will be paying for--but I'll survive." He took his elbow off the table long enough to lift his arms and roll his shoulders back, popping the joints with two loud satisfying cracks. "Give me a minute and I might even be up for trying this Mangrove thing. May as well give it a shot while we're here." And if he didn't he'd never hear the end of it.