Starring:
Enbu, Yuuka
Date: April 12, 2016
Summary:
Enbu and Yuuka sit down for a refreshing lunch in the summer heat, where unexpectedly he reveals the surprising past of a child she's taken into her home.
"Surprises Over Noodles"
Food Stands [Kirigakure]
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Here, closer to the actual food stands, the smells, sounds, and sights are almost overwhelming. A virtual cornucopia of cultures, the largest marketplace in the Water country shows it's roots here- travel. Almost every stall has the decor of a different small village or clan from across the seas upon the curtains which enclose the long 'entrance'. Each of the booths is a small section, roughly 15 feet wide by around 10 deep, which posesses a long bar along the middle, stools along one side and a walkway on the other. Along the longest of the three wooden walls, cooking equipment and food storage lies… And this setup is copied into an area of two back-to-back rows with a third and fourth row facing them from across a moderately sized alleyway for access."
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07/15/14 A.F. - Monday - Year of the Tiger
Summer is in full swing and tourists flocked to the beaches of the Land of Water. Without a cloud in the sky the sun shone brightly, sending a heat wave that could only be countered by the wind off the water. However, Yuuka chose the less crowded marketplace, settled into her favorite ramen shop among the food stands. Leaning forward against the bar, the skirt of her summer kimono rises along her thigh and even at her age, she draws more than a few eyes. A thin sheen of sweat glistens along the curve of her neck as Yuuka exhales a long sigh, brushing back the tail of her updo if only for a brief instant of relief.
Enbu had this strange way of hiding his presence from most people, though not Yuuka in particular due to her training and natural as well as unnatural talents. But some how, Enbu was able to navigate crowds in places he should stand out, which is just about everywhere, without causing an initial commotion. By the time he is noticed, he's usually where he wants to be. In this case, he placed a cool rag against Yuuka's bare neck, though he did not linger other wise. "I am a bit low on ryo… so consider that payment for a bite to eat?" he would ask her now that she had been granted the relief her body language showed she desired. How long he'd been aware of such a thing remained unclear. Enbu was still massive as ever, and now he too would receive more than his fair share of glances, though he had joined the others in taking a long and full stare at Yuuka's semi exposing summer outfit. Strangely… he seemed… evasive about it. Almost as if he were shy but that certainly seemed out of character. It was… more complex than that. "If you are so hot… why do you remain here?" he would ask as well.
+pose The sudden coolness to the back of her neck is something of a surprise, the vividness of her aquamarine eyes blinking up at it's source and finding Enbu. The corner of her soft lips curls with a relaxing smile and she chuckles softly, "Somehow, that's a bit of a strange statement coming from you." she murmurs just as softly. "Though it does make the wheels turn. Please, take a seat. I did invite you to lunch after all, so I don't really mind paying." With another longer breath Yuuka straightens in her seat, turning towards the other chair where she anticipated Enbu might sit. The mention of the heat makes one of her pale brow arch slightly. "Hm, maybe because I like this place. But if something is worthwhile, I don't mind enduring a little bit of hardship." Yuuka gently shrugs a slender shoulder. "Or I suppose I could be just a masochist." she chuckles gently again.
The sudden coolness to the back of her neck is something of a surprise, the vividness of her aquamarine eyes blinking up at it's source and finding Enbu. The corner of her soft lips curls with a relaxing smile and she chuckles softly, "Somehow, that's a bit of a strange statement coming from you." she murmurs just as softly. "Though it does make the wheels turn. Please, take a seat. I did invite you to lunch after all, so I don't really mind paying." With another longer breath Yuuka straightens in her seat, turning towards the other chair where she anticipated Enbu might sit. The mention of the heat makes one of her pale brow arch slightly. "Hm, maybe because I like this place. But if something is worthwhile, I don't mind enduring a little bit of hardship." Yuuka gently shrugs a slender shoulder. "Or I suppose I could be just a masochist." she chuckles gently again.
Enbu would take a seat… and it would creak under his weight for a moment as he steadied himself. "I donate the vast majority of my earnings for the betterment of Kirigakure. I need very little that money can buy." Enbu explained to Yuuka. Honestly, he didn't have what most people would consider a proper meal often at all. "I am sure you can endure hardship.. but I do not believe that you are a masochist… even after everything that has happened." Enbu started with a bit of a set jaw. "I must confess… your brot… Yasushi-sama told me much about you. Usually it was after a deathly serious warning to stay away from you, but other wise… despite my own investigations in to the organizations that experimented on our kind… he told me much about you specifically. I…" he would begin to say before he realized that perhaps it was… rude of him to mention knowing perhaps intimate things about her all of the sudden. They hadn't actually gotten to speak mcuh in all these years. She knew of him and his deeds and he knew of her and her own, but now it seemed he also knew a few deeper things. "… having survived such tells me that pleasure from such things is unlikely." he would assume. "Though… you may have just been joking." he'd admit himself, seeming strangely awkward around her for some reason.
Again Yuuka lifts a pale brow. "Hm, I suppose you can do what you wish with your money, though if you do not have even enough for a decent meal for yourself, that too effects Kirigakure." she murmurs with a smile, warm and a little playful. "But as I said, I was the one that invited you." Turning her bright eyes to the cook, she lifts a hand to get his attention. Summer yakisoba, chilled noodles in a broth. She made sure they each received generous glasses of ice water too and her gaze quickly returns to Enbu. It's easy to tell she's listening to him, truly listening as the words seem to spill. Surprise flickered in her aqua blue eyes for an instant before quickly blanketed with a quiet sadness, a long healed pain gripping ever so slightly in her chest as she smiles. "That is something of a surprise." Yuuka admits. "Yasushi-niisan was a bit hard on me, even protective. I didn't know that he talked about me to others. But I suppose I'm not surprise that he would give you that kind of warning." One of her hands idly fiddles with the cold rag on her neck, steadily warming up to her body temperature and dripping cool beads of water under the collar of her kimono. Closing her eyes, another small chuckle escapes her lips, "I think I was mostly joking, at least when it comes to physical pain." Yuuka vaguely admits. Her gaze meets Enbu and for a full moment, she simply stares into them. "You do know that I am more than just that time, right? Before I surfaced?"
Enbu smirked lightly. "I … donate regularly… and it just got done doing so." he'd explain lightly his financial situation even if it was unnecessary. "I was part… of an effort to expose those who were doing the experiments. If he had not found you, I might have if I were lucky. But he was… better at it than I. A true hunter. I have been more of a shadow, it turns out. Some how." Enbu was after all, quite a bit more… calm and collected than most male Kaguya show themselves to be. He trained extremely hard, but he rarely bared his fangs. "But he told me for another reason." Enbu sighed deeply before drinking just as deeply of the ice cold water. "He had… met a woman. I'm sure you understand what I mean. This was about …13 or 14 years ago. It was a brief moment in time, but…. effective." It seems that Enbu's eyes averted Yuuka's once again. "It was my duty to protect the boy… by keeping him away from this village… yet uncaptured. To allow for him to live his own life and make his own decisions while not having it stolen from him. Like his mother was. Yasushi-sama himself barely knew that he had been born… but he made sure that if anything happened to him, that someone looked out for his son and I… was honored. But… his attachment to you and Yuriko has caused him to come to the village… to join the academy. I have failed… but at the same time… what better hands could he be in?"
Again her bright eyes watch him quietly as Yuuka listens, narrowing slightly with thought every once in a while, overshadowed with quiet surprise just as often. The news that there had been a women, one even she hadn't even known of, was almost unbelievable. But a child that Yasushi explicitly wished to grow up outside the village, what had he been thinking? Why would he wish such a lonely childhood on his own son? Yuuka exhales a long breath of a sigh at the logic of it all, again a hand brushing at the ponytail that tries to stick at the back of her neck. "Hm, a nephew and a cousin." she murmurs with a small, sad smile. "I'm guessing you haven't told him any of this?" she asks, though she might already know the answer. Another chuckle escapes Yuuka and she straightens again. "Thank you for telling me this. It means allot to me knowing that a part of him still live on."
Enbu would shake his head. "He knows nothing. It was… part of what I was told to do. SO that the boy could… become who he was meant to be. He never really explained what that meant, but I think he wants for the boy to… grow up the way… well the closest to the way that a Kaguya used to grow and learn. I don't know why he didn't want him to come to the village… maybe he didn't think it was safe there in then end or maybe he saw something about the village that he thought would weaken him. Still… he obviously told him something because 'Kiwi' was the only word he knew. I think he was … meant to find the village on his own." Enbu would take to the food as it was delivered, eating it in silence for a few moments as he looked to Yuuka. Time nor childbirth didn't diminish her in the slightest. Enbu almost choked on his food a moment as he swears Yasushi was staring a hole in the back of his head from the great beyond. He had a lot of respect for his predecessor regardless of how much time had gone by. "What is done is done… he is now bound to you in an even more powerful way, as well as Yuriko. You have become his family… so it is no longer… a mission I can fulfill. I think… Yasushi wanted to meet him, when he was able to stand on his own two feet. When he could truly communicate with him… and do something more than face the world for him. I think… he didn't want his boy to be… dependent on his strength. I think he wanted a son who would surpass him, instead of feel safe within his shadow." Enbu would reason aloud.
"Maybe," Yuuka allows quietly, still uncertain to the meaning of any of Yasushi's action. As her chilled yakisoba is set in front of her, her expression visibly softens with the smile. Quietly she takes the chopsticks and says a blessing over her food, but doesn't immediately dig in. "This is… an interesting turn of events I think." she admits, brow quirking ever so slightly. "Initially I felt like I needed to get out. I've been working too much. But honestly going out on my own… it's a bit lonely." Her gaze becomes unfocused as she watches her noodles. "After Tsiro-san stepped up as Mizukage, I thought I might see Meruin more often. But I've mistaken. It's been… too long. Past the point of him avoiding me…"
"I… did not know…" Enbu said with a bit of a deep frown, though it was a bit hard to tell with his features at times. "I am not sure what could keep a man from… his wife." Enbu strained to say. "However, I do understand loneliness even if I have long since dismissed the feeling as simply part of this life. I have spent years at a time alone in the world for the village and for the Kaguya. It is… well it was what I was used to. Until I some how was given the position of the leader of our clan. I guess someone was paying attention, but now I find myself too busy to do anything that is for me. And I feel that I am failing others… like Yuriko. She was assigned to me for training by the Mizukage and I… have been unable to help her at all." Enbu admitted. He would however place his large hand atop Yuuka's shoulder. "I am willing to meet you for lunch once a week however… at least. Maybe that will be enough to … hold us over? But… I need to make things up with your daughter as well."
Yuuka softly shakes her snowy head and only after she takes her first bite does she speak up. "Not married. After my second husband I never remarried. Meruin never… proposed." Exhaling a slow breath through her small nose, there was a small moment where resolve seemed to fill her. "I have been standing still for too long, I need to move forward, even if he isn't beside me." There's sadness, a small amount of regret that flits through her brilliant aquamarine gaze, knowing that this would be difficult. "My mates just keep… fighting for this village, and I lose them each time. I had hoped for a large litter by now."
Again Yuuka shakes her snowy head to herself, trying not to linger on that thought either. On the pain of losing each man that she had loved, each in their own way. The large hand touches her shoulder and she reflexively glances up at Enbu, meeting his eyes as she truly listens. Yuuka's expression softens again, "You must have proven yourself in some way, even if you haven't thought of it. And since no one has challenged you, it signifies something important as well. That you have respect as their alpha. As for your duty to Yuriko… perhaps you simply need to re-prioritize your schedule." A gentle chuckle is heard from her, and lightly Yuuka dips her chin with a small nod. "That sounds wonderful. Somehow I suspect I would look forward to it each week."
Enbu was not aware that Meruin had not claimed her, officially. Though he did know that the former Mizukage was the type not to formally commit to things such as that for what ever reasons that went through his mind. "Then it is settled. At the end of each week… we will have a meal together. It may not be lunch, but it will be a meal with no other priorities." Enbu would agree to his own amended terms. "As for Yuriko… she does require special attention. She is …caught in a crossroads. She is far more capable than her station allows for her to show but… she needs to be trained to use all of that talent, potential, and even experience. Unfortunately, her nick names and titles have made some doubt her true capabilities even when they have been measured thoroughly… it is …. just strange. Her ability has left her without proper guidance from an official stand point and so she's … in limbo." Enbu explained to Yuuka the situation with Yuriko's training and why he was tasked with it. "But I also feel she may be the only one who can help Kiwi grow as well. You may be able to mother him… and you could even try to teach him of combat… but he has only shown interest in proving himself to her. I think he may even be jealous of how far she has gone without him."
