Title: Fine Fine Life
Author: Vashti
Fandom: East Side Sushi, BtVS
Character(s): Oz, Juana, Aki, Osaka staff
Rating: K+/PG
Summary: Oz has found a temporary home working at the small neighborhood sushi restaurant, Osaka.
Length: ~2,190 words
Disclaimer: Only the words are mine, and that's probably up for philosophical debate.
Notes: written for the 2018 August FAD on livejournal. I've been told that you don't need to have seen East Side Sushi to understand this story, but I highly recommend the movie anyway.
There are three sushi chefs at Osaka. Two are Japanese men – one by way of the islands of Japan, the other by way of the islands of New York City – the third is a Mexican woman. There's a Puerto Rican, a Mexican and a Japanese guy in the back. One of the waitresses is Korean. The other is half-Japanese, half-White. The owners are a, formidable, elderly Japanese couple originally from Hateruma miles away from Osaka.
All this Oz learns over lunch during his first few weeks working at the sushi restaurant.
He took the position because the money's good, there are benefits if he manages to stay longer than three months, and, even at their busiest, there is an underlying current of peace and control that speaks to him in the same way the rhythmic repetition of a solid baseline has always spoken to him.
He stays because of Juana's skill with a knife.
Mrs. Yoshida studies the newest hire surreptitiously. The kind of young white men looking for jobs in small restaurants fall into a few categories.
There are college students looking for, legal, ways to make money. As far as they are from any campuses, Osaka doesn't usually get too many of those. This Oz looks young enough to be one of them, but the spirit around him is wrong for it. He is not carefree enough.
There are the transients who are just passing through. This Oz could be one of those, but he falls into the rhythm of the restaurant as smoothly as round stone into a stream. Like flat stones, transients leave a definite wake as they skip along a surface that had been still, creating new patterns that, for good or ill, are difficult to ignore.
There are the dreamers wanting to work their way up into restaurant business or the world of cooking. Often they don't have the money or the talent to go through culinary or business school. Often one relies on the other. That had been Juana. This Oz does not have the same focused drive of a dreamer – that Juana had. Now Juana is behind the counter with her carbonite knife and deft fingers. Oz seems to be content behind the curtain.
There are also the desperate, looking for almost anything to sustain them. Sometimes they were running from something. Sometimes they were looking for sanctuary. Juana had also been one of those – at first. Osaka had been her oasis
Mrs. Yoshida thinks this may be who Oz is as well.
Jimmy points his chopsticks in Oz's general direction. "Alright, man, bosses are out." The quiet conversations going on around the table as they eat their lunch die away. "Tell the truth. You're taking steroids or something."
There's an air of expectancy. Not that anyone thinks Oz is using – he's too even-tempered for that – but that doesn't mean that don't want to know what he's on. They just all assume he's going to say something new-agey like thousand year old willow bark, or matcha, or super-kombutcha. After all, Oz is a around the same height as Mrs. Yoshidda, and possibly more slender than even Aki, but he lifts rice bags and giant steel pots of water with the same ease that Yoon-Ah and Katie handle plates of sushi.
Oz dips his nigiri into the wasabi and soy sauce mixture on his plate and shakes his head.
"What is it then?" Victor says. "It's gotta be something."
"Concentrated awesomeness," Oz says, before bringing the nigiri to his mouth.
Around him the table erupts into good-natured laughter at Jimmy's and Victor's expense. Oz gets some ribbing, too.
He smiles, closed-mouth, as he chews his food. He's almost certain that either Aki or Juana made what's in his mouth. Their styles are very close.
It's not really necessary, but Oz starts appearing at the restaurant in the early hours with Aki and Juana. It's a coin toss to see who will be there first. When he and/or Juana are there before Aki, they wait in companionable silence for him.
"You don't have a key?" he asked her the first time it happens.
"Mr. Yoshida offered, but I declined. I was honored, but my daughter is young and my father is nosy. I don't want to abuse Mr. Yoshida's trust."
Oz nodded. "What happens when Aki can't be here?"
"Then I will take the key."
So far that hasn't yet happened, Aki not making it in. Before long Oz is beating both Aki and Juana to the restaurant. He waits for them by the door.
Oz always sits with his back to the lintel, his guitar on his lap and his bag to one side. This usually makes him a little money, playing for other early morning workers, but not much. When it's him and Juana waiting for Aki, he asks her to sing or hum songs she knows, especially Mexican folk songs. By the time Aki comes, Juana is telling Oz the stories behind the songs she knows.
The first two weeks of the new school year come around and Oz and his guitar wait for Aki alone while Juana takes her daughter Lydia to school. At the beginning of the second week, as Aki is leading the way to the storage rooms in the back, he glances over his shoulder at Oz and says, "If you need a place to stay, I know people."
Oz's lips twitch up. "Nah, man. I'm good."
They're in the storage room now, just the two of them, so Aki stops and turns. "You know, others have helped me when I needed it."
Oz feels his smile grow almost in spite of himself. "I've gott aroom. I'm probably paying too much, but I'm good. I promise."
Aki nods. "Okay."
Juana carries her knife with her every day out of professional pride. She checks it daily for rust and nicks. Every few days she takes care to sharpen its edge. The balance should never change, but she still sets it gently across her fingers and weighs it carefully in her hand. She did this with her first professional knife. She does it still with this one, her first gift from Aki.
Her knife can slice between the bone and flesh of any fish. It can cut long, flawless translucent sheets of cucumber. It can slice finely through raw ginger as easily as chops onions. It was not meant to cut human flesh. But if it has to, she is sure it can do that, too.
"Juana, run," Oz growls. He's standing between her and the men who accosted their morning song. Everyone at Osaka teases Oz about how small he is, but as he stands there Juana is almost not sure who to fear. The menace that radiates off him is so strong, she doesn't understand how their attackers can stand there uncowed.
They already have what little money Oz has collected from early morning passersby. They even have his wallet. It wasn't until they had tried threatening Juana for her money and access to Osaka that everything changed.
Juana isn't sure how her knife has worked its way into her hand. Her bag is at her feet. If she looks down, probably the protective cloth that should be wrapped around her knife is draped across the bag.
She thinks of her daughter. She thinks of her father. Last week, she had hosted dinner for everyone from the restaurant who could come. Aki had been there, of course. Oz had made it as well. And though he had complained that a Western guitar was not the proper instrument for it, Mr. Yoshida had been persuaded to sing old Japanese love songs to Mrs. Yoshida and Lydia until everyone's eyes were glowing.
When Aki had finally heard the story of how she was robbed at gunpoint, how it had eventually brought her to Osaka's door, he had insisted that they all enroll in self-defense classes. Juana, Lydia and Aki went twice a week. Her father couldn't be convinced.
Juana never expects she'll need to use it. She never to expects to hold a knife against a person.
"Run, Juana!"
She never expects to see a werewolf come to life before her eyes.
She almost guts Aki. Thank the Blessed Mother, he's been taking that self-defense class with her and Lydia. Aki disarms Juana and pulls her close. "Come on. Let's get inside."
Her bag is in his hands. Her heart is in her throat.
The blood that splashes the windows is green.
Oz holds up blood splattered hands, both to prove that he is (once again) harmless and to show that they don't have time for questions.
"Help me," he says, and Aki nods.
The saving grace is that the morning delivery is late. It's the only saving grace. The moment the last of the blood is gone – where the bodies went, neither Aki nor Oz want to tell Juana though she demands to know – everything moves.
Jimmy and Shinichi walk in just as they've put away the last of the delivery. Victor is moments behind them. Mr. Yoshida makes a surprise visit, pulling aside both Juana and Aki to, likely, discuss the new sushi chef coming on that day. Mrs. Yoshida slips into the back only long enough to get the things to update the slate menus with the days choices. When she spots Yoon-Na coming in the front door, she pulls the waitress into helping her. Oz works non-stop, bringing supplies in from storage and doing prep work for the cooks and sushi chefs. Katie doesn't sit down from the moment she walks in the door to the moment they all sit down to eat lunch, and then she is the last to do so.
If anyone else at the table notices the pool of silence surrounding Juana, Aki and Oz, no one mentions it. And the things they have to say to each other aren't meant for this table, no matter how hard they worked to save it.
Juana, whose face has been passively neutral all day is the first to all but shout, "You could have been killed!" the moment the last person has left the restaurant.
It wasn't so strange for Aki to offer to pull down the gate and do final lockup for Mrs. Yoshida at the end of the night, nor for him to offer Juana a ride home. Usually if he did one, he didn't do the other, but if anyone thought it was strange that he did both tonight they didn't say.
"I always thought my great-grandfather's stories were only stories," Aki says. He is not nearly as angry as Juana.
Oz, who lives somewhere within walking distance, usually stays behind to help whomever is closing up for the night.
His eyebrows lift at Aki's words. "There are werewolves in Japan?"
Aki shrugs a little. "Something like that. Okami. The wolf spirit."
"So…you're not scared."
Aki laughs. "Terrified. But according to my great-grandfather's stories, the okami either takes life or protects it depending on how you have lived. Great story for a kid who's scared of dogs."
"That's not the point," Juana insists. "What if you had been hurt!"
"I'm hard to hurt, Juana," Oz tells her.
"Maybe for normal people, but those things had green blood, Oz. We saw it. They were not normal."
"It's okay, really. I've fought-"
Aki's hand on his shoulder stops Oz mid-reassurance. "What Juana is trying to say is that she was worried about you, and that your life is more precious than a restaurant, even the one where we make our living."
Juana's eyes are still blazing and her arms are crossed over her chest, but she doesn't contradict Aki's words. She looks like she has more that she wants to say.
Heart leaping in his chest, Oz take a step towards the reason he stayed. "I'm sorry I scared you, Juana. I just wanted to protect what's ours."
"I understand."
"And with you behind me holding that knife, I was pretty sure we were good."
Surprise and pleasure chase themselves across her face, before it quickly returns to an aggrieved frown. Not before Aki has seen it, however, and he laughs. "I saw the knife. She was pretty scary."
"Single mom, sushi chef, professional slicer of things into little bits... In my opinion, those demons were scared of the wrong guy."
The blush that had been creeping up Juana's neck at Aki's words blooms across her face at Oz's. Her arms drop from her chest and she shifts awkwardly on her feet. "Just don't do it again."
Oz nods. "Although I'm pretty sure that with half the demonic neighborhood watching us butcher two bodies, we'll be safe for a while."
Juana's hands go to her hips. "You keep saying that. Demons. Like what they teach in the Church?"
"Something like that."
She spears Oz with the same intensity she uses in the kitchen. "Tell me everything."
"Tomorrow," Aki says. He squeezes Juana's hand. "We can do this tomorrow. Bright and early."
"Always."
[in]Fin[ite]
Notes2: A synopsis of East Side Sushi can be found here: wiki/East_Side_Sushi#Plot More information about okami can be found here: wiki/Japanese_wolf#Culture
Notes3: Thank you to everyone who has read this story in spite of not being familiar with the cross. I appreciate you all *so* much! Extra thanks to Marcus Rowland, for a better synopsis for East Side Sushi, and fanreaderonetwo, for picking up on errors I'd seen but forgotten to correct.