"Is it always so crazy round here?" Goku asked with a mouthful from the kitchen door with a big bowl of noodles in his hand and some chopsticks in the other. After talking to the boss for a while, he asked everyone down there to leave so he and Mutt could talk. Big Bald was asked to take Goku up to where they cooked the noodles and give him some more. He looked kinda angry at Big Bald when he did it too.
So there he was, sitting on a little chair, watching even more people walking all over the place. He asked Big Bald what this place was and he told him it was a restaurant, basically, people came here to eat if they didn't feel like cooking themselves. Goku thought that was weird at first until he remembered that Grampa used to cook for him a lot too. Inside the kitchen, the food was cooked for the people on the other side and he wasn't kidding, they were cutting, rolling some yellow stuff around, tossing things into metal pots, out of them, burning some stuff a lot but other stuff a little less.
Goku smelled some of the lizards there too, even saw a few of them being cut up and tossed around but the things they were making made his nose crazy. Grampa always told him he could sniff out like a dog, some animal that was good at that he guessed, but it was all kinda too much for him. Which felt wrong, he loved food! Food shouldn't be making him feel kinda confused!
It was a good thing he had some nice, steamy noodles close by to block out the smells. Big Bald didn't teach him how to use the sticks but out of the corner of his eye, Goku spotted a smiling old man with a bald head on top but lots of spiky, grey hair on the back of his head and big, bushy eyebrows holding the sticks with his fingers in a way that made Goku stare. Then he held them the same way and suddenly, he wouldn't have to burn his hand anymore to eat noodles! Before he could thank the old man, though, he went back into the kitchen and disappeared into the mess of people inside it.
By the time Goku was finished with the noodles, the boss was coming back up with a smile. "I see you've mastered the art of chopsticks."
Goku smiled back. "Yup, a nice old man in the kitchen showed me!"
Big Bald got another mean look from the boss, but it didn't last much. "Goku, Hongqi said you were traveling through the forest when he met you, may I ask why?"
"Well I was tryin' to get back home, sir," Goku added the last bit, remembering how the others called him, it sounded polite. "A monster attacked me and I got lost in that flooded forest out back."
"Where is your home?"
"Not sure," Goku scratched his head. "It was somewhere up in the mountains so I just decided to go there."
He almost did that funny, eye bulging look too but stopped himself. "My dear boy, I know we've just met but I would like to invite you to my home, at least for tonight. The mountains you refer to are quite a long journey away and it is the least I can do to repay you for saving my friend."
"You mean that big house outside town?" Goku asked with wide eyes, remembering how big it looked.
"Indeed I do, in fact, we'll even go there in my car!"
"Woah! You've got one of those too?!" He practically jumped out of the chair, Grampa told him about those a couple times, big boxes with wheels on them that could outrun any animal in the world.
"Why don't you come with me and find out?" The boss started walking away from the kitchen, out to where the other people were carrying to the food too, Goku didn't waste a second following him. On the way out, he saw even more folks sitting on tables, some of them looking old, others younger, some so small they had to be carried by those big-chested guys and were crying a lot. They stared at him, then the boss then back at him on the way out, Goku didn't really get why some of them looked kinda scared, the boss seemed real nice.
When they walked out of the restaurant, Goku saw the car. It didn't look like a box, more like a really, really long black and shiny square. Woahing at it, Goku walked up so close he could even see some weird, spiky looking guy staring right back at him. "That's weird,..."
"There's more to see inside," The boss said then pulled a part of it out with a clicking noise. Goku walked up to where he pointed and saw pillows all over the place! Big, yellow pillows that looked big enough to sink into! He didn't waste a second getting in there and doing just that. They made a loud whooshing noise when he sat down but in no time, he was feeling pretty good being there, they were comfier than his bed back home!
The boss sat down next to him, pulling the opening back into the car. Goku noticed it rumble for a second and felt it move, he couldn't help but look around. Usually, when stuff moved under him, it was a wild animal he was ridding or one of the logs he spun around the house.
"Comfortable?" The boss asked from his right side.
"Yeah! It's really soft!"
"Just wait until you try out my guest beds then."
"Beds? You've got more than one?"
He laughed at that. "Of course, quite a few people live in my home, they need someplace to sleep after all."
"I figured, your house looked ginormous from the forest."
"Believe me," His smile widened. "It's quite a bit bigger up close, as you're about to see."
He must've been staring at everything for so long that he didn't even notice they were out of the city. The boss made something in the car wall slid down, giving Goku a pretty good look at Kuchinashi below them, they were driving uphill to the house. It was still amazing how a place like that could exist, he was even starting to doubt the boss' house could top it but boy was he wrong.
The car stopped for a second when they reached the big door then kept moving after a loud whooshing noise from the front stopped and started again when they went inside. He followed the boss out of the car and stared at it from up close, It was taller than any tree he'd ever climbed, even the giant ones in the flooded forest, the only thing bigger than it was Nyoibo that one time he made stretch out for a long time into the air.
"I get why you've got lots of beds now,..." He said, still staring at the place like he wasn't sure it was really. That got a good laugh out of the boss.
"Wait until you see the dining room,... and the food."
He didn't now what that room was for but he got food just fine. There was a pair of huge, wooden doors with a couple mean looking guys standing on both sides, they called the boss sir and opened the door for them both. The inside of the house was super bright, with a whole bunch of candles hanging off the ceiling on some weird, white, spiky looking thing. There were more guys in suits too, and people who kinda reminded him of the ones from the kitchen with the way they were dressed.
"Erm, sir?" He asked, pointing at one of those big-chested guys walking up some stairs.
"Yes, Goku?"
"Why are some people around here puffing their chests so much?"
He didn't answer right away, just staring at him like he didn't know what to say before he chuckled, then laughed, then laughed so hard it started to echo through the house. For some reason, it made the guys in suit stiffen up.
"My boy," He laughed a little more. "Those are women!"
"No way, really?!" Goku stared at a couple more of them passing through, some of them were even wearing the suits like the others. "So that's what they look like,..."
The boss shook his head and laughed a little more before putting his hand on Goku's back. "Yes, that's what they look like. But don't stare at them, especially their chests, it's very impolite."
"I'll try but I don't know how I'll recognize them if I don't."
"Just like anything else, with practice."
He led Goku to another big pair of doors that got opened for them, it led down a really long way with even more doors on the side. The lights were still crazy bright everywhere, making Goku wonder how they kept all the bugs out with so many on. After another pair of doors, they made it to a room even bigger than the one they came in through. In the middle of it was a table, big and wooden that looked almost as long as the car from before.
"There must be room for like, ten people here!"
"Closer to twenty-five, actually," He pulled out a close chair on the end and patted the bottom of it. Goku sat down there while the boss did in the chair to his right. A bunch more of those people in white suits came in, carrying some big, shiny stuff on squares. They were almost enough to block out the smell of food, almost. When they pulled the bowls off, Goku got a sudden, good whiff of the food there that made him almost drool all over before he shut his mouth with a loud thud.
It was meat, he was pretty sure of that, but the way it was cut and cooked made it seem like something from a whole other planet from theirs. The girl who brought the food, bowed to them both and left the room, but not before putting on some shiny stuff on every side. He recognized one of them as a knife but he didn't get the other with spikes on the end.
"Enjoy!" The boss told him with a grin. Goku thought about just eating with his hands until he looked over to the boss next to him, he was stabbing the meat with the spike so his knife could cut through it without sliding off. Just like he did with the old man and the sticks, Goku watched him do it for a second then repeated it.
"Man," He breathed out after chewing on the meat and feeling its taste all over his mouth. "This is even better than the noodles!"
"Don't let Mutt hear you say that."
"I won't if you don't!" Goku giggled and chowed down some more. "By the way, is he gonna be okay? We sorta left him back there."
"Not to worry, Mutt has been taken over to the doctor's clinic where he'll be resting. The injury he got will heal nicely, I'm told."
"That's good, he was gettin' real sick looking on the way here, I was worried he wasn't gonna make it."
"He wouldn't have without you," The boss whipped some goo off his face. "Which I am, as you know, extremely thankful for!"
"Aw it's nothin', my Grampa always said to help someone out!"
More meat was brought in when they were done. "This grandfather of yours, is he back home waiting for you?"
"Nope! He's right here with me!" Goku put the spiky thing and knife down and reached into his pouch pulling Grampa out for the boss to see. "Here he is! Hei Xiong, sir, meet my Grampa, Son Gohan!"
He gave Grampa the same look as when Goku asked him about girls, but he didn't laugh, instead, he smiled and nodded. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mister Son."
"Sorry, he doesn't talk much, not since the monster got him a while ago."
"I sense there's a story behind that."
"Sure is!" For the next while, Goku talked about the night Grampa died, how the monster smashed their home, smashed him but how Grampa got out by becoming an orange, four-star ball. This got more questions from the boss, about his home, how he got there, what Nyoibo could do, did he have more family,... He stopped eating after the second meat came, but Goku kept at it until his belly was getting big again. The boss let him have as much as he wanted, which was super nice of him! He even gave Goku something else he'd never tried before, ice cream. After spending lotsa time in the hot, flooded forest, or swamp, it was pretty nice to eat something to cool him off.
After he ate that and really couldn't eat another bite, the boss took him upstairs to a place called the bathroom. He said it was where people got cleaned up in a big, weird looking corner in the wall with spinny things for hot and cold water along with a big hole called a toilet. It was for pooping and peeing. Goku cleaned up good, then put on some white, but really soft clothes. The boss was waiting for him with a girl who bandaged him back up when he came out and said Nyoibo and Grampa were in a room close by, the room he'd be sleeping in.
The bed was huge, just like everything else in the house with a table close by and a weird looking box on it too. He asked what that was too but the boss said he'd explain it tomorrow, that it was getting late and they all needed some rest from a big day like this. Goku couldn't really any problems with that, almost as soon as he laid down on the bed, he was feeling super sleepy.
After wishing the boss good night, something that felt real similar to doing the same with Grampa back when he was all there, Goku thought how much weirder and crazier things had gotten. But for the first time, it wasn't a bad kind of crazy. The kind you went to sleep at night with a smile on your face.
His study was situated near the room Son Goku was sleeping in, dimly lit and with a bottle of fine, Atlesian wine on the table waiting for him. Hei first let himself sink into the chair, then poured himself a glass full, letting the fine scent and taste of it jolt a fresh surge of strength through him. The past week was a stressful time, and after speaking to someone as energetic as Son Goku for nearly two hours, paying attention to every fine detail spoke and unspoken was a taxing bit of business, important but taxing nonetheless.
Still, Hei would be lying if he said it wasn't some of the most interesting hours he'd spent in recent memory. Son Goku, He thought with a smirk. The most guileless man to walk Remnant.
Which wasn't largely an insult to the boy, fools and idiots were among the highest things he loathed in this world, especially when they were part of his organization, quite the opposite actually. After spending decades of his life dealing with liars, cheaters and snakes of all walks of life, meeting someone so naive, so open was quite refreshing, almost surreal even. A person with absolutely no cunning when it came to people, no capacity to lie.
I doubt he even knows the meaning of duplicity, probably can't even spell it.
Which made the boy's tales of gargantuan Grimm and grandparents transforming into orbs and magic staffs equal parts fascinating and somewhat troubling. It also meant there was great potential in the boy. Even before meeting him, that idiot Bai did something productive for a change by providing the first piece of evidence pointing to what Son Goku could contribute to the Xiong Crime Family when he knocked the antagonizing oaf across the room. A man many times his size and weight, tossed aside like nothing.
Hongqi, or Mutt as he was called by the others for having the outrageous idea of being actually loyal to the man who paid for his clothes, home, food, and many other things, provided the rest. A story about a boy who effortlessly destroyed a Lacertus type Grimm then spent most of the day carrying a wounded man by leaping across vast distances from tree to tree, all without stopping a single time.
Son's own tales provided further proof, an entire pack of Ursa defeated, even a Beowulf slain in the direst of circumstances, numerous ordinary animals all dangerous in their own right falling to his prowess in battle. The boy was, for all his naivety, someone who could survive the harsh world on his own,... to a point. A fact Hei could respect.
Still, He stopped himself from being too caught up in musings. I've already taken one too many risks, and I must be sure what I have in mind does not blow up in my face again.
Yes, for all the things Son could accomplish, Hei would have to carefully see what the boy could and could not do for himself. Too much was riding on another failure after the cargo was lost in the Bog of all places, that disgusting death trap the Grimm had recently made their home, becoming quite active across the southron parts of Mistral. Kuroyuri had already fallen, a first set back in his plans and one which might soon bring all his ambitions to nothing if he wasn't careful.
A sigh came out between his teeth, and a glance at his wristwatch showed how late it was, half past two in the morning. Yes, it was time to rest himself, tomorrow he would see for himself what Son Goku could really do, but somehow, in spite of his recent troubles, he went to sleep that night with a smile regardless.
A/N: Our first non-Goku POV, which is a nice change of pace. Goku is fun to write because of how simple he is meaning I don't need to spend lots of time with elaborate explanations but variety does help spice up the writing process.