Asuma glanced at her over his shoulder, grin sharpening, and deliberately twitched his hips. The yukata slid down another inch, catching at his bare hipbone. "Got to pay them back somehow. They'd be pretty insulted if we tried to give them money."

Natsumi's cheeks flamed. Quickly, she combed her long hair forwards, concealing herself behind a shimmering waterfall of black silk. Asuma awarded himself a mental point.

She was right about the monks, though; he remembered a few sideways glances the last time he'd walked through the monastery's ancient stone hallways. But he'd been a lot younger, then, and the closest he'd ever been to pretty. Natsumi was far more likely to draw looks, now.

Not that the monks would ever do anything about it. They were honorable men.

His yukata had no pockets. After a moment's awkward juggling, Asuma managed to hang his trench-knives on the thin cloth belt, gave up on keeping his scrolls anywhere but in his hands, and contemplated his jockstrap.

Well, it wasn't like Natsumi could get any redder.

He managed to work up a faint flush, though, when he stooped to yank his underwear on, misjudged his level of balance, and almost crashed straight through the delicate screen door. Natsumi stifled a sound that was suspiciously like a giggle; grudgingly, Asuma gave her a point. Then he sorted his clothes out, shrugged his yukata back into its proper place, and tugged his socks on. They were a lot cleaner than he remembered. He was half-wondering what the appropriate kind of thank you was to a religious man who'd actually done your laundry , when Sachiko's scratched dogtags slipped out of Natsumi's meagre pile of things and clinked to the floor.

Slowly, Asuma picked them up and turned them over, winding the chain between his fingers. They didn't really need them anymore--her head had already gone back to the client--unless Intel had any kind of interest in the name of a dead thief.

He couldn't quite bring himself to discard them.

It was his weakness, he decided, to be swayed by impressive woman, no matter which side of the line they fell on. He strung the tags around his wrist--they clinked against his bracelet--and slid back the screen door to find his boots. The monks had kindly laid out a pairs of tabi socks next to them, small enough to fit Natsumi's feet. He scooped them up and offered them to his companion.

"If you're done grooming yourself, love, there's a dining room calling my name. And I'm pretty sure I remember how to find it."