Cold evenings were probably not the best time to hang out in trees. Certainly not when the moss had frozen over into slippery slicks of ice.

Kotetsu cursed under his breath and dug his numb fingers into rough wood. Was Hayate going to come by or not?

Bah, this was not worth waiting for. He was getting hungry, and the light was fading. Ryuichi may or may not be home, and soon it'd be time for Angry Chef's shift to come on, which would mean it'd be tricky to get food if he didn't either head home or catch Ryuichi.

Man, he'll get back at Hayate next time - see if the guy'd try and flop onto him from trees again.

He coiled his legs beneath him, balancing with a perfect curl of chakra to his soles, preparing to leap, when a sound caught his attention. Snarl?

A remarkably human sound, and he glanced down to see Katsuko, the rather nice jounin who had promised him dinner!

Beaming, he slung down on his knees, upside-down. "Katsudon~"

Face. Bandages. Spiky black hair.

Kotetsu?

Katsuko blinked and willed herself to sit still when the black haired chuunin appeared in her field of vision, grinning like an upside-down maniac.

"...Kid." She said at last, dryly. "Is that my new nickname now? Because I could always switch to "Ko-Ko," if you really wanted to."

Ahhh, Kotetsu, he of the boundless energy and short attention span. Just the sort of person to drag her back from her bleak mood.

"It's really close to it though," Kotetsu protested. "And you promised me dinner. Right?" He grinned up - down - to her, and tried to keep the slight hesitation out of his voice. Be optimistic - at most she'll say no, and then he'd just have to brave the wrath of the cooks in the cafeteria.

"'cause you mentioned it. During our mission. Couple days ago. Oh! And I promised to show you where you could get a fish, right? I could show you after!"

When Kotetsu grinned like that, and his bandages shifted just so...

"Those bandages make you look like a chipmunk." Katsuko said, the corners of her mouth twitching. What had he said? Dinner? Well, anything was better than sitting here alone in the cold. And the dark.

"Dinner, yeah, sure." She mumbled, hauling herself to her feet. Kotetsu still hung upside down, blinking at her like a starving chipmunk/squirrel/possum thing. "Stop looking at me like that, Ko-Ko. I'll feed ya. Now get out of that tree 'fore you slip and fall on your head."

Which he wouldn't, considering he'd been good enough to make it into ANBU, but it was windy and cold and you couldn't take chances, right?

She stuck her hands in her pockets as she mentally calculated her savings. If Kotetsu was anything like Makoto was when he mooched dinner (but that was three years ago, what did she know about him now), she'd be down by at least half her paycheck by the end of the night.

Heh. Boys.

"You owe me a damn big fish for this, kid." A half-hearted effort to be cranky at best, but it was hard to be sad in the face of Kotetsu's hopeful chipmunk face.

Dinner! Yay! He somersaulted off the branch, instantly reminded of Ginta's easy grace, and managed not to fumble his landing.

Well, food was better to think of, and he bounced up again. "They don't get very big," he cautioned, "like, maybe as long as a finger, but that's it. unless you summon them, but I don't think they'd be any good as summons."

He had been about to mention koi, because those were big fish, or arowanas... but he didn't want to think about other people right now. He wanted to think about food.

"You could get two, maybe," he added hopefully. "I was thinking of getting another one, but Green Demon might get jealous, and Ryuichi doesn't like pet-sitting - he barely even feeds Green Demon! Hayate might, but he's out a lot too."

Green Demon. He called his fish "Green Demon." Katsuko rolled her eyes and strode down the sidewalk towards the restaurant district, muttering to herself. "Ryuichi and Green Demon and Hayate, oh my."

Kotetsu knew Hayate? Well, they were roughly around the same age. They'd probably had happy male bonding time or something.

Her stomach rumbled loudly. Food first. Talk later.

"We could fight them," Kotetsu said, "Or let them flare at each other a bit..." He bounced on his toes for a moment. "Oh so hey, where're we going for dinner? Doesn't have to be really good, cause I eat anything, I caught squabs for Moriki - if I get like, more'n five he'll roast them - and you can catch them almost anytime, though now it'd be slim pickings... Can you cook them? Dunno if you have an oven though - I don't, and I don't know how to use it much."

"Know this place." Katsuko grunted absently. Her long legs ate up the ground as she walked, her boots splashing in the puddles left by harsh spring rain. Rain. Rain. She hated rain.

"S'called Wakahisa's." She called over her shoulder. "They sell all sorts of things. Ramen, yakitori, katsudon," She grinned at Kotetsu at that last one, "And it's really, really cheap. Perfect for dinner."

Old man Wakahisa owed her a couple favors, anyway. Maybe she'd be able to get thirty percent off, or something.

He'd heard of it. Didn't go there often, cause it was at the other end of town, the opposite quarter of the Village, actually. But hey, ANBU headquarters wasn't that far away... and if she was treating him it was worth going all the way across the village.

Kotetsu bound up to her, catching up in several strides, though he'd have to keep a fast clip to stay in line with her. Katsuko had long legs, dammit.

"I want katsudon~" he chirped, grinning back at her.

Katsuko laughed, her mood abruptly lightening. "And I wanna big-ass blue fish!" She answered cheerily, a bounce coming into her step. Kotetsu and her were the same height, if you excluded his hair, and he was keeping pace with her just fine. "I'm gonna name him Jigoro, just 'cause."


It was an awesome name, and it sounded a lot like "gigolo". That was reason enough. Lessee, right turn after Fujitaka street, past the house with the saggy red roof... almost there!

"My Green Demon can beat your big-ass blue fish!" Kotetsu told her, stretching his arms wide to indicate how quickly he'd do it. "'Cause he'd totally thrashed Ryuichi's!"

He grinned at her. "You should have seen it!"

Take a shortcut through the alleyway between the clothes store and apartment complex, pop out onto the perfumery street-- ew ew gross now she remembered why she didn't take this way often....Katsuko turned to look at the grinning chuunin. "How bad did ya beat Ryuichi's fish?" she asked, mainly as a way to get her mind off of that horrible smell. She didn't understand why women wore scents all the time. Artificial stuff-- too much like chemicals and labs. Gave her a headache.

"Green Demon bit the hell outta Ryuichi's fish's fins." Kotetsu beamed. Smells like this didn't really bother him; it was girly stuff and didn't concern his world view at all, just like pretty frilly clothes and all that.

"And then drove him into a corner and if I didn't fish him out, he woulda bitten him dead." Kotetsu gloated slightly. Ryuichi's face during and after the fight had been hilarious, even though he'd gotten pummelled in the spar afterwards.

The look of unholy glee on Kotetsu's face was quite amusing, as was the way he waved his arms when he described the fight. Poor Ryuichi. Poor Ryuichi's fish, whatever its name was.

She breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the end of the street and turned the last block to Wakahisa's; the stink of Perfume Lane (as she dubbed it) was beaten back by the smell of cooking food from twenty different kitchens. A symphony of different scents and flavors.

Her stomach growled again, and Katsuko sped up her walk. Old man Wakahisa, being the cheap penny-pinching bastard that he was, had taken up shop on the very end of the block. They'd have to run the gauntlet of nineteen inviting-looking (and much more expensive) restaurants before the reached his hole in the wall shop. No matter. Wakahisa still made the best food in Konoha, as far as she was concerned. His business manner, on the other hand, was what probably kept him working here and not in some fancy five-star restaurant.

Kotetsu wasn't one to take offense to anything easily, but Wakahisa's...own special brand of uniqueness tested everybody's limits. Well, it was best to just wait and see. Maybe she'd get some entertainment out of this.

Kotetsu followed close behind her, eyeing the establishment. It hadn't changed from when he'd last seen it; tiny little place, dark; just about the only place lit was at the back with the so-called bigger tables - those that could seat six instead of just four or two - and the cooking area, where the cook harangued two younger, skinny assisstants. They all were bone-thin, knobbly around the joints. Sort of reminded Kotetsu of the saying, "The cook starves to death, the doctor dies of a cold." Or something similiar. He'd always wondered about the ninja. After all, ninja died by ninja. What would be ironic is if the ninja died in bed from old-age. That'd be nice.


He decided Katsuko could pick where to sit - after all, the last time he'd had interactions with a cook he'd ended up banned from the cafeteria.

Wakahisa turned around from yelling at his two latest assistants, the scowl on his lined face lightening only slightly when he saw who had come in. "Oh. It's you." He aimed a beady stare at Katsuko, raising one grey eyebrow when he saw that she had company. "And you brought a friend, too. That's a first. Where've you been, anyways? Thought you'd died."

"Wakahisa!" Katsuko grinned broadly and spread her arms as she walked into the store, blithely ignoring the looks of utter incredulity the two assistants gave her. She enveloped the lanky older man in a hug, completely unperturbed by his lack of response. If Wakahisa hadn't wanted the hug, he'd have whacked her with the soup ladle in his right hand before she got within range.

"Missed you, brat." Wakahisa said gruffly, his face wrinkling into a smile--or as close as he ever got to a smile. One of the assistants made a sound vaguely remniscent of a dying cat, while the other just clutched his spatula to his chest and looked like the world was falling down around his ears. Wakahisa twitched and stepped away, clearing his throat loudly. "Saburo! Satoshi! Get these two a table and take their orders." He snapped, scowl returning in full force. The assistants jumped and scurried into action, oversized white uniforms flapping around them.

Katsuko turned and smiled at Kotetsu. "Wakahisa's gonna fix up a feast for us tonight! Hope you're hungry."

"Oi." Wakahisa complained. "Th' hell makes you think I'll pull out the works for you? Stupid brat." The cook turned and stalked into the kitchen, grumbling under his breath the whole time.

Made him feel right at home, that did. Kotetsu grinned at Katsuko, and followed her to their table - one of the asisstants nervously wiping down a greasy formica table for them and presenting them with cheap disposable chopsticks and paper napkins.

"Reminds me of Moriki and Ryuichi," he told Katsuko, "only Ryuichi feeds me for free. Most of the time. Sometimes he even makes curry."

"Is Ryuichi a licensed five-star chef?" Katsuko shot back, plopping down in her chair. It squeaked alarmingly. "After Wakahisa quit being a ninja he traveled around Fire Country. Studied at famous cooking schools all over the place cause he was bored. Don't know why he came back here when he could have gone to better places, but I'm not complaining." She smiled at the assistant--Satoshi or Saburo? Honestly couldn't tell them apart--when he brought over a pot of warm tea and cups. Poor guy. He was so skinny there was no way he could have been here more than two weeks, and already he looked worn down.

"Like, an actual five-star chef?" Kotetsu didn't precisely squeak in excitement, but his tastebuds were tingling.

He'd only really heard of the man's reputation - being a stingy, nasty tempered bastard - and his prices hadn't been quite that low enough to even warrant making a trip all across Konoha for it.

"Really," the assisstant looked like he wanted to add more, but settled for just nodding in support of Katsuko's words.

Kotetsu's voice went lower. "wow."

"And he tests out all his new recipes on his assistants," Katsuko continued wryly, giving the assistant an amused glance. "Keeps them until they're too fat to wait tables anymore, then fires 'em and hires new ones." The young assistant brightened considerably.

An irritated shout and the clang of pans came from the kitchen. "Don't badmouth me to my waiters, brat! And hurry up and order, I ain't got all day!"

Katsuko didn't bother to hide her chuckle, opening up a tattered menu and scanning through it quickly. "I'll have the beef noodle soup. Beef cooked medium-rare, no onions."

Well, Katsuko was treating him, right? Kotetsu sniggered mentally and prodded the slightly greasy laminated menu, its tattered edges scraping on the plastic surface of the table. "I'll have the katsudon," he said, beaming because all dons always had such generous portions, "and the miso ramen." He was especially tempted by the bentos, but it was only served in lunch hours. Pity.

The assistants scurried away with their orders. Katsuko poured herself a cup of tea and leaned back in her creaky chair, surveying Kotetsu through the steam that rose from her cup. "So, what's up, kid?"

Kotetsu nearly burned his fingers on the hot metal pot, and then promptly burnt his tongue on the jasmine tea.

"Ow!" He hissed, and blew on the surface of his cup. "Um. What's up? Nothing much, just some down time waiting for the next mission..." It was almost always like that - hectic frenzy of activity just before a mission, during a mission, and then the long run home, and then the few days of rest and tedious boredom while you waited. Unless you got injured, then you waited in the hospital, which wasn't so bad if there was someone to come and visit you and sneak you chocolate.

"Sparring with Ryuichi, teachin' Tenten some throws, but she'll not need it soon, she's really good at her schoolwork in the Academy." He beamed with a modicum of uncle-y pride.

She nodded and blew on her tea first, taking a long sip. Her lips quirked in a smile at Kotetsu's struggles with the tea cup. "Who's Tenten?" She asked absently. "Feel sorry for the girl, having you as an instructor."

"'m niece!" Kotetsu grinned at her. "She's good, and loves kunai and she's got like, a fantastic aim! I think she'd probably be a weapons specialist like Ryuichi - she like, really does good with so many types of weapons and wires and..!" He had to take a breath, and a gulp of the hot tea, grinning hugely at Katsuko, expression softened somewhat at the thought of his neice.