.-.-.-.
In place of a doorway, a yellow silk curtain hangs from a crooked lintel. Only Kyuubei follows Tsukuyo inside; the curtain swings closed at their backs and an uncanny hush descends. The noise of Tae and Sarutobi's frank and forthright disagreement in the street outside fades away, until only the sounds in Sarutobi's very highest registers can be heard – and even then only vaguely, distantly, as though the shrieking could be another world away entirely.
Somewhere deep within the shop – lost in the nearly opaque fog of incense smoke, amidst the narrow aisles of perilously stacked shelving – someone, somewhere, is whistling the classic second opening theme of Ultra Supernova Mecha-Strike! 100% Blast Force.
The smoke of Tsukuyo's pipe rises to the incense smog clouded below the ceiling. "You in here?" she asks the smog.
Abruptly the whistling stops, and Seita bounds up from behind the front counter as vigorously as though propelled. "Tsukki-nee! Ah, and Kyuubei-san – nice to see ya! Gimme a minute, I just gotta get this display finished and let Kuwa-san know I'm off, and then I'm all yours."
"So long as you ain't gonna make us late for dinner," says Tsukuyo sternly – then adds, a little apologetic, "You mind waiting a minute, Kyuubei?"
Kyuubei does not, and would say so – but Seita has returned to his work, bright-eyed and restless as a squirrel in the city park in autumn, elbows propped on the glass countertop and industriously polishing – something—
The question blurts out almost of its own accord.
"You what?" Seita says politely.
Kyuubei takes a deep breath and tries again, this time at a volume somewhat above a husky whisper: "What... is that, Seita-kun?"
"What's...? Oh," says Seita, following the mutely awed path of Kyuubei's gaze, "oh – well, that's our luxe brand! Pretty pricey, but you really get what you pay for; I got the mid-sized model cheap on my staff discount a while back, and I gotta tell you, it makes a great paperweight. Keeps all my homework together," he says importantly, "even the handwriting practice, and I get pages of that stuff. Way too many pages. My handwriting's better than Tsukki-nee's, anyway, and she never even had to go to school, so I don't see why I gotta do—"
Tsukuyo rests her back and the sole of one boot flat against the wall. She says nothing, and only gazes thoughtfully up at the smoky ceiling, but a message nevertheless appears to be communicated.
"—but I'm still gonna do it all right away before dinner," Seita says hurriedly, and returns to his task with twice the haste of before, briskly twisting a lozenge-shaped length of solid glass through his soft polishing cloth. Translucent, striated with several tasteful, winding ribbons of colour, unfurling through the body of the thing like patterns in a child's marbles—"and this," Seita begins again, setting it aside to gleam on a velvet-lined display case beside several of its polished gleaming fellows, "is a bestseller, very popular, I reckon I've sold one to just about every lady in Yoshiwara by now – not Tsukki-nee," he amends, catching Kyuubei's gaze shifting slowly to the side, "but still, that's not to say if the right occasion arose she'd never—"
A line of smoke curls towards the incense-clouded ceiling. "Enough of that, Seita," Tsukuyo says, and though she says it mildly, Seita trips over his tongue in panic and hurtles into a frenzy of high-speed polishing.
Kyuubei studies the display case closely a moment more, then turns away. All around the small and incense-smelling shop are shelves of – devices, each more intriguing than the next and each as worthy of intently focused consideration. A true salesman, Seita: it takes him not a moment to track the scrutiny of Kyuubei's gaze, and not a moment more to chase it up with his energetic salesman's spiel.
"—and this one ain't a standalone, so to speak, there's an attachment rig as we sell separately but we got a discount rate for the pair together—" and Kyuubei's nodding, intently, a world full of experiences yet to be revealed right here in this shop – its premises so cramped in size, yet so unimaginably vast in potential, "—and here we got your basic beginners' kit for the gentleman as fancies expanding his horizons along with his—"
"Kyuu-chan?" The yellow silk curtain across the doorway twitches – and already Seita is explaining to no one: Kyuubei moves at once, in a flash as fast as the arc of a sword, at the very instant Tae speaks. "Tsukuyo-san? Are you still in there? There's a stalker out here who won't stop harassing me, and aren't you supposed to keep this district safe? Won't you get rid of her for me? – oh, Kyuu-chan, there you are!"
Kyuubei nods, in solemn agreement. The shop's silk curtain twitches closed behind them both, not quite of its own accord, and not quite all the way. "Have you been well, Tae-chan?"
A little way down the street, Sarutobi is berating a lamppost at deafening volume; in Tae's hand is carelessly crumpled the wreckage of a pair of spectacles. "Since I last saw you two minutes ago, Kyuu-chan?"
"Absolutely, Tae-chan."
"Then I've been very well, thank you," Tae says politely, and tucks the remains of Sarutobi's spectacles inside her sleeve. "I'm sure Edo will thank me," she explains.
"I'm sure of it too, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei, sombre as the grave.
The matter of their height difference is proving problematic. It is difficult to block Tae's view of the shop's interior as thoroughly as Kyuubei would like, and yet the issue remains that such matters are not the province of casual midday conversation, or indeed of any conversation, and furthermore would send Kyuubei spiralling into a pit of such unspeakable mortification were they ever to become the province of conversation that only seppuku, or possibly a one-way ticket to the end of the intergalactic line, or perhaps taking up an assumed identity aboard an Amanto trade ship and living out the rest of a disgraced natural lifespan in disguise amidst the stars could ever salvage the aftermath: and so it is imperative that Tae be persuaded from the threshold.
But to infringe in any way on Tae's right to do as she pleases and go where she will – indefensible! A samurai who would seek to impose their own will on a woman is no samurai at all; and to create an excuse to persuade her from the threshold would be to lie, and a samurai who would lie to a woman is also no samurai at all—
Tae clears her throat. In her eyes is a look of tender concern. "Ah – is everything okay, Kyuu-chan? You seem a little... unbalanced."
"That's because I'm standing on tiptoes, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei, who values plain honesty above all things.
Tae considers this. Then she nods, in sympathetic understanding, and says: "You'll stay after dinner tonight, won't you?" – wholly assured and not at all a question, and offers Kyuubei her hand – and in one simple, glorious move the impasse is passed, the obstruction deconstructed, for Kyuubei should have known better: nothing stands in the way of Tae for long.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
Some few weeks ago, Tae had disengaged from their shared and thoroughly preoccupying activity and moved very slightly back, to gaze into Kyuubei's face with a look of intense significance and apparently no awareness that her outer kimono had slid down to reveal the illicit and unspeakably wonderful slope of her shoulder within her inner kimono; which was fine, because Kyuubei had awareness enough for both of them.
"Really," Tae had begun, her voice just as intense and only a little breathless, "marriage is no more than an excuse for men and women to screw each other silly. That's all it was designed for, and that's why I have no respect for couples who engage in sex before marriage; it's disrespectful to the whole institution."
Kyuubei, who had at the time been thinking about sex before marriage with a particularly focused and creative intensity, turned a vivid shade of scarlet and forbore to respond.
"If a man wants to pound some girl into the mattress so badly, he should marry her; that's what the honeymoon is for, and after that she can stop wearing her sluttiest underwear and he can start scratching his balls at the dinner table, and they can slowly grow to resent each other like normal married couples do. In the proper way." Tae thumped her fist into her palm, and looked at Kyuubei with an expression of fierce determination. "The decent way," she said. "Don't you think, Kyuu-chan?"
It took Kyuubei several tries to get the words out. It would probably have taken fewer if it weren't for the dishevelled nature of Tae's obi, and the proximity of her bare ankle to Kyuubei's on the couch, and the lingering echo of Tae's voice declaring pound some girl into the mattress that still reverberated in Kyuubei's ears. "Definitely, Tae-chan."
Tae took Kyuubei's hand from where it still rested at her waist and clasped it between her own, gazing down with a look of bashful modesty. "Marriage was invented so men and women could finally get laid, and that should be respected. Tradition should be respected. It's indecent for any of them to do it any other way."
"I couldn't agree more, Tae-chan."
"Indecent," said Tae, her gaze still modestly lowered, "for a man and woman to do it any other way."
"Even thinking about it makes me ill, Tae-chan," said Kyuubei, with complete honesty.
"Doesn't that happen every time you think of men, Kyuu-chan?"
"That's very true, Tae-chan."
At last Tae looked up again. The shade of pink that had spread its way across her was as elegantly understated as could ever be expected, but the look of determination was back in her eyes. Her fingers against Kyuubei's palm caused a sensation a lot like someone performing open-heart surgery in the dark: the soft and vulnerable contents of Kyuubei's chest in terrible, dangerous turmoil. "Kyuu-chan," she said. "A man and a woman, Kyuu-chan."
"I really don't enjoy thinking about that, Tae-chan."
"What I mean, Kyuu-chan, is – are we a man and a woman?"
Fervently: "No, Tae-chan."
"Well, then!" Tae said decisively, as though that settled things, although what things it settled Kyuubei wasn't wholly sure; and after a moment Tae began to search Kyuubei's face for something Kyuubei wasn't wholly sure she'd find there, either – mostly because Kyuubei wasn't at all sure what it was she was searching for. "Kyuu-chan," she said. "Listen, Kyuu-chan. Sex before marriage is disgraceful for a man and woman. You and I aren't a man and woman."
"I see," Kyuubei said seriously, which was not entirely true – except, a moment later, it all of a sudden became true: and Kyuubei was overcome by a blazing flush so fiercely strong it almost induced heatstroke on the spot. "Tae-chan, you – do you mean—"
Tae clapped her hands across her eyes with a small cry of distress. "Oh, don't embarrass me, Kyuu-chan! Innocent girls like me are easily flustered; you have to understand how terribly difficult it is for me to even think about matters as dirty as men and women screwing each other's brains out, let alone for me to talk about them... But," as she parted her fingers, and looked through, "—yes," Tae had said, with a particularly intent glint to her eye, "I suspect that's exactly what I mean, Kyuu-chan."
Though Kyuubei's dreams had covered territory both exhaustive and exhausting throughout the years, not even the brightest dream can surpass reality: the wildest of those dreams were already transcended in the very first moment that Tae's inner kimono slid from her shoulder too.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
Night never really falls in Yoshiwara. When Kyuubei returns alone some few evenings later, the main streets are as bright with the pulse of delirious club lighting, the lines of red lanterns strung back and forth above the street, the strobing, blaring neon advertisements, as though the district is stuck in an artificial, red-tinged daylight.
And women, too: women on all sides. Behind the gilded bars of private premises, hands curled around the cage-fronts and blowing kisses through the gaps; gliding by at the centre of swathe upon swathe of wrapped and folded silk brocade, hairpins glinting in the lantern-light; women in doorways of bright noisy bars, their yukata shorter, brighter, their voices raised to heckle for the passing trade – mighty fine sword you got there, mister, you wanna come inside and show me a move or two? And then outside the lantern-light, outside the shining gold and neon blare of the busy town streets, on the roofs and in the alleys and at the flickering shadows' edges: women dressed the way Tsukuyo dresses, there and gone again, faces covered, silent flickers of shadow in the shadows.
That Kyuubei has eyes for Tae alone is not, has never been, will never be in doubt: but it is very hard to say no to women in yukata so short, and so enticingly low behind the neck, with lips so very red and their attention focused so appreciatively on Kyuubei – whose expression remains, with no effort, as grave as it has ever been, despite the blush burning up as recklessly as wildfire. Kyuubei has eyes for Tae alone; but the fact remains that plenty of women have eyes for Kyuubei.
"Kyuubei-san!"
A familiar voice – but it's proving challenging to see beyond the fluttering beautiful swarm of women offering up their glossy sheaves of publicity materials.
"Kyuubei-san!" Louder, and nearer, and more insistent – and then Sarutobi lands with a thump at Kyuubei's side, dropped straight from the rooftops, and the Yoshiwara crowds explode back away from her like the ripples of a stone thrown into a pond. She straightens, and casts a brief, assessing glance around her; and then she demands, "What's going on?"
"This young gentleman was going to follow me to the Blossoming Lotus, Edo's number one pleasure bar," says the woman whose pale and dainty fingers are linked around Kyuubei's wrist, and Kyuubei's blush stokes like a furnace.
"Oh, no," says the woman whose hand feels very much as though it rests gently in the small of Kyuubei's back, "there must be some mistake; I believe this noble young warrior was offering his company to me tonight—"
"Excuse me," begins another woman, and then she too is spoken over, and Kyuubei looks gravely to Sarutobi in the silent hope that she will understand – as, all the while, the blush stokes and stokes like the blast heat of a rocketship leaving from the station.
"Listen up, ladies," says Sarutobi loudly, as her hand clamps down on Kyuubei's elbow, "listen up – getting involved with Kyuubei-san is two for the price of one; there's a gorilla comes attached, and none of you want to wrestle a monster that belongs behind the bars of a zoo just for your evening's fee. Now come on," she orders, and shoves a path for the two of them back out into the bustle of the street.
Gold glitters on every side. Neon light skids and strobes dizzyingly across it. The night is well under way, down here in Yoshiwara, and far up in the darkness beyond the tight-packed curling, furling rooftops, there's only a sliver of moonlight in the sky to be seen.
Kyuubei takes a deep breath, and another deep breath, and then another one as well. "Were it not for your assistance, I am unsure whether I would have escaped with my wallet and virtue intact. You have my thanks, Sarutobi-san, and the thanks of the Yagyuu. Good evening, and goodb—"
"Ah, ah, ah," says Sarutobi, oddly pleasant for a woman whose grip on the back of Kyuubei's coat has grown quite so suddenly, ruthlessly strong. "If you're concerned about your virtue, then whatever are you doing in Yoshiwara? Are you alone, Kyuubei-san?"
Her grip isn't letting up. All attempts to flee with dignity are going nowhere, as are all attempts to flee without dignity; and so the struggle ceases, and Kyuubei instead stands straight and tall – straight and taller – slightly taller. "Alone but for my honour. And my sword. And my bushido, with which I am never alone. Such is the way of the samurai."
Sarutobi disregards this noble solemnity, and nudges up her glasses. A certain slyness has crept into her voice. "The gorilla's not here?"
"Tae-chan is sleeping," says Kyuubei. "In her room in the main house. In her yukata. The one with the small floral print. It's... very pretty, Sarutobi-san."
This seems to satisfy Sarutobi, who turns smugly on her heel and pushes through the curtain of a nearby bar, waving Kyuubei inside after her, and so Kyuubei follows – into a hot and crowded room with cushions here, pillows there, women women women everywhere – silk on the walls and stained carpet on the floor and round red paper lanterns strung from the ceiling...
In the warmth of that louche red glow, an individual less alert than Kyuubei might have difficulty identifying the owner of any hand that brushed – so very, very gently – against their thigh.
Not Kyuubei, though.
A hard-toed sandal smashes beneath the culprit's chin; the hilt of a sword cracks down atop his skull; his kick-propelled flight ends against the wall, which he hits with a thud and slides down with a pitiful keening sound. "Don't touch me!" Kyuubei cries, and drives the sword passionately sheathed again with a clash of steel on steel.
The women of the bar stir not a single painted eyelash. The clientele of the bar show not an iota of surprise. A slight masked woman slips through the front curtains after a moment and slings the unconscious offender outside by his leg, before disappearing again as silently as she came. The music piping through the speakers sings on and on, and the noise of the bar continues unabated.
Eye closed, Kyuubei breathes deep – stands tall – regains a few traces of composure, regains a state of even tranquillity. Sarutobi is already sprawling in an attitude of unsurpassable relaxation atop a heap of satiny cushions against the wall; under her close surveillance, Kyuubei sinks down beside her.
"You probably saved his life, Kyuubei-san."
Kyuubei regards her with solemn gravity. "Do you really think so, Sarutobi-san?"
"Oh, yes." The observation is made in the careless manner of one who speaks with complete self-assurance. "Someone would have caught him at it, sooner or later – so he's probably lying in some stinking gutter out there thanking whatever god he likes that it was you who did it, not Tsukki. Two, please—" to the silk-haired woman waiting for an order, "—though really, he's probably still going to end the night with his balls popped open like chestnuts on a fire once she grinds them underneath her heel. Tsukki's a very sadistic woman. No sense of mercy, nor of decency, nor fun, nor humour—But what are you doing in Yoshiwara, anyway?"
The music and the noise and the lights, and the sweet lure of incense and lush fabric and lips as rosebud as any crabapple blossom in the springtime: Kyuubei's thoughts are chaotic, awhirl, and to meet such a direct question with a lie would be not only a most un-samurai-like path of action but also, at this moment, more effort than it's worth.
The truth emerges. The sake arrives. The truth emerges at greater and more impassioned length, and its reception is warm beyond belief.
Kyuubei's cheeks, too, are warm beyond belief.
"If I'd known," says Sarutobi, her hand pressed intimately to Kyuubei's shoulder, leaning in to speak up close, red-faced, "if I'd known, I'd have come prepared. To educate. You don't need all these cheap women," with a grand, swooping gesture to encompass the whole of the bar – and, possibly, the whole of Yoshiwara – and quite probably, too, the whole of Edo and Japan itself. "Forget them, Kyuubei-san. You don't need them. You need me."
Kyuubei's attention is rapt. Another cup of sake, poured by Sarutobi and pressed firmly into Kyuubei's hand by Sarutobi, increases its overall level of raptness by several pleasant degrees.
Sarutobi leans in further to explain, with a confidential bellow, that she's left most of her belongings at Tsukki's tonight, not that Tsukki knows about it, and if Kyuubei wants then the two of them could hop up on the rooftops right now and go to Tsukki's and break in and retrieve her, Sacchan's, belongings, and Kyuubei could see up close and personal just what manner of kit she, Sacchan, would advise for anyone considering life as a ninja on the go, a ninja with needs, and desires, and a reasonable monthly budget and a desire to make sound investment purchases and a frequent shoppers' loyalty card for certain reputable Yoshiwara establishments—
"You are an honourable woman," Kyuubei says, with a passion that speaks as its own thanks. "From this day forf – forth, this day forth – from today, Sarutobi-san, this is – my clan will not speak ill ninja. Ill of ninja. The Yagyuu will respect the way of the, of."
"Ninja," says Sarutobi.
"Yes," says Kyuubei. Beyond Sarutobi, the room is a shimmering, wheeling blur of gold and glitter and paint and silk and billowing plumes of incense smoke; and when Sarutobi reels to her feet and declares her intent to leave, Kyuubei follows fervently at her side.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
Over long years of growing accustomed to life with one eye, the issue of depth perception has ceased to present Kyuubei with much of a problem. Over one evening subject to the curiously agreeable influence of alcohol, however, the issue of depth perception has come lurching and staggering back to the fore. Sarutobi navigates the vertiginous rooftops with a speed and surety that bespeaks, possibly, the rigorous training of the ninja she has undergone – or, possibly, the frequency with which she drinks to intoxication and then takes this journey – or, possibly, both – and Kyuubei keeps up as best as gravity and momentum will allow.
The rooftop on which Sarutobi declares them arrived is higher than the rest, and golder, too, with its edges swept up in elegant curlicues and its exterior radiant with light and open balconies. The hum of busy trade rises up from street level far below.
"Follow me," she commands, muffled by the lockpick clenched between her teeth, and swings precariously down from the guttering to force up the window of a darkened room.
She finds the light switch just as Kyuubei clambers in behind her. The room is small and plain; its walls are bare, except for several kunai embedded in the approximate outline of a human head. It also reeks, overpoweringly, of tobacco.
"Just keep it down," orders Sarutobi, climbing onto the bed. "No one ever notices there's someone in their house, so long as you keep quiet. It's because they're not expecting you to be there, you see—" she pushes up a ceiling slat, and carefully removes a large black case hidden away in the attic space, "—and you wouldn't believe how long you can stay in a place unnoticed, so long as no one's expecting you to be there, and so long as your place of employment is aware you won't be showing up for work that week and you have somewhere private to relieve yourself and whatever premises you're infiltrating don't own a dog that's likely to sniff you out while preoccupied by engaging in the act of relieving yourself... My personal record is six days uninterrupted, but it would be so much more if it weren't for that creature of Gin-san's—There," Sarutobi says in satisfaction, the ceiling slat fitted back into place, and she climbs back down and sets the case on the floorboards before Kyuubei.
Kyuubei gazes upon it with a sense of utmost solemnity. Then Sarutobi sets herself on the floorboards too, and the gaze of utmost solemnity travels to her instead; and then Sarutobi flips the case's lid, and the gaze of utmost solemnity continues its onward travels.
"Now look here, Kyuubei-san," begins Sarutobi, confidentially – and Kyuubei does, and the night proceeds in a spirit of riotously eventful discovery until Tsukuyo herself arrives home.
"Out," she says.
"Tsukki—"
"Out," says Tsukuyo. She takes her pipe from her mouth and points it to the door. Her composure is admirably unruffled. "Out, Sarutobi. You too, Kyuubei. Wait – Kyuubei?"
Kyuubei takes a deep breath. "I am grateful for your hospitality this evening, Tsukuyo-san, unwittingly given though it was; Sarutobi-san has been most instructional on a range of topics. I offer you my sincerest apologies for our intrusion, and ask your forgiveness, while also understanding and accepting that mere apologies may not suffice, and offering you in that case my promise of seppuku on a date of your choosing. I am prepared to shoulder the burden of my own responsibility."
And this said, Kyuubei reclines with dignity and an abrupt thud on the floorboards of Tsukuyo's bedroom. Through the unshaded window shine faint traces of Yoshiwara's light. Patterns skip playfully across the plain ceiling, with a beauty so far beyond words that Kyuubei is quite sure it could never be articulated.
Tsukuyo glances at Sarutobi. "You understand any of that?" she asks.
"Something about pottery?" says Sarutobi. She scoops Kyuubei up to a sitting position and the room slants pleasantly sideways. "Something about not being able to handle your drink?" she says, more loudly, into Kyuubei's ear. "At least you're not as bad as Tsukki: though I'm not sure anyone's as bad as Tsukki. At least you don't turn into an abusive, disagreeable harpy when you drink. At least—"
Kyuubei's eye slides peacefully closed. There comes a sound rather like Tsukuyo kicking an item of heavy plastic across the room. "What the hell is that? Sarutobi, what the hell is—and that! What the hell is that! That ain't hygienic, you get that out my room! You get out my room! I never even said you could come here!"
"I'm between assignments, you selfish bitch! I'll move into a hotel before long, but until then it's warm at yours, and are you really going to kick me out? Are you really going to force me to freeze to death alone in the uncaring streets of Edo?"
More thumping, more crashing. Blearily, Kyuubei looks: Tsukuyo is scooping various items of Sarutobi's back into their case. "Yes," she says. "Out."
Her serene composure has gone up in ferocious, hot-faced flames. She slams closed the lid of Sarutobi's case and hurls it from the open window. With no hesitation and a shriek of outrage, Sarutobi dives headfirst after it.
Tsukuyo folds her arms, looking sternly down at Kyuubei. "You too," she says – then hesitates, and offers her hand. Kyuubei takes it, and unfolds upwards with what feels like consummate grace. The room sways only a little. "But take care, alright? Don't listen to that idiot. Get her to walk you home, or something."
"You have a kind heart, Tsukuyo-san," Kyuubei says solemnly, and means it with such overwhelming sincerity that it seems imperative to repeat it immediately, and then again, and once more – and then Tsukuyo jabs her pipe towards the door, and Kyuubei gets the message.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
"What time did you leave this morning, Kyuu-chan?" Tae switches off the flame, and turns from the stove with her hands in oven gloves and a scalding tureen between them. "A shuttle passed overhead a little before dawn and woke me up, but you were already gone. Did you really leave for training so early?"
Kyuubei takes a drink of water so hurried and tremendous that it gargles immediately back up.
"Are you blushing? Kyuu-chan? Ah – Kyuu-chan, are you choking?"
Louder than is strictly dignified, Kyuubei blurts: "This smells delicious, Tae-chan, I can't wait to," still coughing, "try it, to try it, I mean—" and, wielding the ladle with skill borne of long practice, flips the lid from the tureen and scoops up a dripping spoonful all in one swift motion.
"You'll burn yourself! Oh, Kyuu-chan, watch out—!"
It's as hot as boiling and it tastes like it looks: as though it's glowing and burning and radiating nuclear devastation all the way down.
Kyuubei swallows, eye grimly closed. The substance settles in the stomach like the debris of atomic waste, toxic enough that its very existence should trigger city-wide evacuation. "Delicious, Tae-chan."
"Ah – well, thank you, Kyuu-chan – but you should have waited," Tae says, reprovingly. "You could have hurt yourself, and then how would I feel? Knowing my own cooking was responsible for hurting you...!"
On the table between them, the contents of the tureen glistens and heaves with the uneven motion of inhalation, exhalation. There is something unnatural about its flickering ultraviolet glow. Like an eclipse, it is difficult to view straight on.
Kyuubei dollops another ladleful into a bowl. "It looked too appetising, Tae-chan. I tried to wait, but I couldn't hold myself back another moment."
Tae's expression seems uncertain. Kyuubei takes another bite, swallows, expends immense effort on concealing the unearthly internal sensations it causes, and nods in solemn approval – and then at last Tae relaxes, and falls into a smile, and serves herself as well. "It's a new recipe, actually! I thought I might try something different today, so it might not be up to my usual standards. But – you do like it, though, Kyuu-chan?"
Kyuubei speaks gravely around a mouthful of food. "I love it, Tae-chan."
"You don't think it needs a little more salt? Because the recipe said to add two twists, but that seemed excessive to me – except now I'm wondering if perhaps I should have followed the recipe the first time, and saved any changes for the next time I make it... Oh, I don't know! What do you think?"
Kyuubei's gut feels as though it has been wrenched free from its moorings, transported to a parallel universe, and thoroughly sandpapered before being returned, inside out. "I think it's perfect, Tae-chan."
Another spoonful. The unearthly ultraviolet glow of Tae's cooking is nothing at all compared to the radiance of Tae's smile. Another spoonful. It's much too much to hope for, that the matter of Kyuubei's nocturnal Yoshiwara adventures might have slid from the table entirely... but nevertheless, Kyuubei hopes.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
[A.N.: Part two should be on its way soon! Any comments would be appreciated.]