Ain ended up somewhere in the Midwestern Rukon district. The little area was known as gaijin sector. It was where most of the spirits that weren't from Japan but died there were sent. As a result it was quite the cultural hodge podge of shops, eateries, architecture, and crafts. The people charged outlandish fees for their trades. Especially for being so far away from the Seireitei wall. Usually area's this far out were beginning to just turn into slums. But because of the people's prices they had miraculously prevented this. In short, sweet and more simple terms, it was a tourist trap. A nice tourist trap, but a tourist trap none the less.
Ain had slowly acclimated herself into the little sector. She soon learned that the afterlife wasn't so much rainbows and fairy tales as they had told her however. It seemed even if you were dead you had to work for an un-living. So Ain, like the other dead masses of the sector did what she could. It wasn't easy by any means.
She soon found out that ego's only got bigger after being able to hone your trade for 100 years or so. That and if you look 10 it didn't necessarily mean you WERE 10. Then there was the strange little fact that nobody seemed to like it when you referred to them as dead. There were a lot of unwritten rules to learn every time she turned around, and THEN there were the written ones as well. People seemed to cluster into family groups that weren't really family and she soon realized that if you got hungry in this afterlife it meant something special. What it meant Ain wasn't entirely sure but people got weird dreamy looks in their eyes if somebody's stomach ever growled.
At first Ain thought it had something to do with the fact that most of the so called 'gaijin' here were cooks. Not just dinner cook cooks but the type of cooks that the living world made movies about. The type that put so much heart, thought and even soul into their cooking that not doing it would be something akin to not breathing for them. So in a world where not many people ate, Ain just thought the cooks were always just a bit too ecstatic at the sound of a growling stomach.
It would be one of these cooks that taught Ain about the workings of this world and the gaijin sector in particular. Hugo Guyon was portly man with thick tan skin and dark brown hair. He was a French man who's English was broken at best and who's Japanese was just a hair better than his English. He'd been too delighted at fussing at one of his customer's for ordering a steak well done when Ain had happened by.
"You!" He had practically screamed at her in his thick broken English. "You look like a young American. Tell THIS MAN how meat of this quality should be prepared!" He was using his spatula like a wand pointing at the man who had apparently offended him.
Ain had been frozen like a deer in head lights from the initial out cry. "I...um..." She looked from the portly French fellow then to the dark haired, tattooed offender, who just happened to be a shinigami. Ain had by this time been told of the shinigami. Well she'd been told not to get involved with them by most of the other 'gaijin'.
"Spit it out American!" The French fellow demanded and Ain forgot all warnings she had received.
"Rare?" Ain guessed. The guess was based mostly from the fact that what ever the French guy was serveing the shinigami looked like raw hamburger to her.
"YES!" The french fellow seemed smug and surprised at the same time. "See you shinigami?" He said shaking the spatula heartily at the offender "Even Americans know this!"
The 'death god' gave the lump of raw tartar another loathing look. "Hmph. Then let's see her eat it." The shinigami said pushing the plate in Ain's direction.
Ain paled "Oh I'm not really that hungry thanks." She tried but was betrayed by the growling of her stomach.
"You will eat Hugo's cooking!" the dark French man ordered her delighted at having somebody else to feed. He even went to the length of spooning a large fork full of the stuff up for her as if to feed her himself.
Ain went to protest only to have the mush promptly put in her mouth. At first she panicked at the idea of contracting mad cow disease or something but then a funny realization hit her. What would it do? Kill her? To late mad cow too late! So instead she lightly took the fork from Hugo's massive paws and actually allowed herself to taste the mush. After a moment her eyes lit up in surprise "Hey...that's not bad at all..." She said at the dark haired cook.
Of course Hugo had known this from the start. "See! What Hugo tell you?" He said taking the plate from the now interested shinigami. "Oh no! You go somewhere else. Hugo doesn't feed the cowardly!" The man's big hand rested on Ain's shoulder and began to direct her into his restaurant, nose high in the air.
PPW Golden~~~~*
Anybody want to guess that Shinigami with the very minimal clues?