The calm after the storm is the cruelest of them all, she tells him over the idle chatter of the younger crowd one autumn morning. The smell of burning pyres, she tells him, lingers in the air even long after the aftermath of battle.
"How do they smell like?" He asks.
"Barbeque." She responds and he looks at her with wide eyes, swallows the piece of meat in his mouth in a harsh gulp. He almost coughs.
She's joking.
"No, no, not really." She shrugs off, "They use a technique to cover up the smell of burning flesh with that of incense."
"Ah." He ponders. "So you don't know what they really smell like?"
"Why?" She turns to him. "Do you?"
"N-no. Not really." He averts his eyes. It's not that, he thinks, it's just he doesn't stay long enough to witness the burning of the funeral pyres. It's in his nature, probably, that he at least attempt to avoid allowing the scent of death to linger around him. He wonders, then, that if she stayed long enough to watch the burning of the pyres, then wouldn't she reek of death?
"You're probably thinking how death smells like." She says before biting hard onto the steak on her fork. "It might smell like me." She chews. "It might smell like nothing at all." She says so casually, as if it weren't that big of a deal.
To someone like her, it might not be, and it should be the same for him, and yet…
"I thought you were going to say regret."
She stops.
"But in all honesty, I think you smell pretty nice."
She almost chokes.
Really?
"Clean. Strong. Musky. Are you using men's shampoo?"
She puts down her fork in a loud clatter and stops altogether.
"Are you making a fool out of me?" She mutters.
"No, no, no!" He quickly defends. "I was making a joke, that's all. I wasn't sure how you'd react to it, seeing as you're always so serious…"
Always?
Was she?
"Am I?" She asks quietly, almost inaudibly against the noise around them.
"Well-" He hesitates, unsure of whether to answer or to tell her to forget about it, although the latter would be a bit dangerous…
He begins to wonder and she watches him.
"In a sense." He begins.
"Of course." She cuts him off.
The lapse in their conversation is awkward, provocative. He flushes as though he's made a mistake, but can't admit it.
"Well, someone has to take things seriously since the rest of my team isn't planning to."
Tori-Hana-Ken, the bird, the blossom, and the blade. Her three-man, or rather woman, team was composer of her, the samurai, Asayake Tenkou, the thief, and Koubaku Haru, the geisha. They were a dysfunctional team of sorts, but still a team that was effective and efficient.
"It was just a joke." He mumbles.
"I know." She grins and then looks at him shocked expression, "What? I can't leave the conversation hanging like that, if I had one of us would have to leave."
"Leave?"
"The awkwardness is overwhelming, if you couldn't tell."
"Thank you."
"Okay, now you've made it even more awkward." She laughs. "But fine."