Okay so a scatterbrained drabbley part two to waitress. I have decided to make this a loosely linked series of drabbles because I can and I apologize in advance for sucky grammar and the off-in-a-million different directions of this one. I feel like I would update pretty quickly if given the proper motivation (hint hint).
She moved through the teahouse with a grace free of almost any vestiges of the clumsiness that marked her earlier years. She still had her moments but in this town everyone knew the pretty young waitress who was occasionally clumsy, and just adored her all the more for it. Smitten young men would gather in the teahouse to waste their wages on food they weren't hungry for because she wouldn't go out with them. She never looked at any of the town's men, her eyes dreamy and faraway. Some said they lingered on a past lover and some said she was just lost in world no one else could really see. Really the men of this town couldn't compare to the one in her mind's eye.
The rumors about her were far flung and colorful, but never mean. It wasn't everyday that a young girl blows into a town with no relations or guardianship and takes up an abandoned hut on her own. She was their darling because she gave them something to talk and ponder about and because she smiled so widely and freely.
So it was a surprise when the girl known for such grace and a smiling countenance dropped a tea tray and let her jaw go slack as the teahouse flap was brushed to the side. She had heard his geta and their odd wooden-metallic thunking long before she laid eyes on that beautiful, beautiful face.
She was seized by an attack of near violent déjà vu as he breezed in, potent and dangerous with an aura so intense it seemed to suck in the room until it had condensed to just him and her.
His dark hair was still wild and shaggy and his skin was still dark. But the difference was that when his scintillating feral eyes slid to her they softened almost imperceptibly and a fondness smoldered in their dark depths.
They went wide, however, at the sight of what had indeed grown to be a very pretty girl flinging herself at him at a speed that made his chest swell with pride. He laughed at the horrified gleam in the patrons eyes when he brought swarthy arms emblazoned with his status as a convict around her lithe form.
"Hey brat," he drawled sounding bored when inside he was anything but.
"Mugen," she shrieked into his chest, happily engaging him in a hug like they did this all the time.
The dreaminess of her eyes evaporated and all that shone in them was adoration as she looked up at him. Every man in the joint felt a wrenching pain in his chest at the sheer levity of her gaze and every woman had a panic attack when they saw that the teahouse mascot was hugging a convicted felon. Under the intimidating façade, some older, wiser women noted the gentleness of his embrace and the fondness in his eyes. They were less then thrilled at the source though.
He was suddenly and painfully aware of everyone in the teahouse looking at him and the fact that he was being hugged by a happy, squealing girl.
"'right 'right get off already," he grunted, ruffling her hair just to annoy her.
"You ass! We just reunited and you're already acting up."
He merely made a face and dropped unceremoniously into a booth, looking up at the young waitress expectantly.
"Dumplings," he grinned and watched as she smiled again and sauntered off to get his dinner.
What he wouldn't tell her is how excited he was to see her and how he wanted to rip out the throat of every moron that was fawning over her, which was just about every man in the place. He wouldn't say that she had grown from cute to the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and he certainly wouldn't tell her he'd missed her. But he would walk her home to her hut and see to it that no other man stated nosing around and he would do his best to keep that adoring look in her eye. Because they fought like cats and dogs but it kept her occupied and he always could make her laugh. And she gave him something to protect and made him feel wanted and needed which was something he subconsciously craved. They were leeches the both of them, feeding of each other in symbiotic parasitism and it couldn't have worked out any better.