The days passed quickly, and started to fall into routine. Teppei and Sunny hunted or went to the store in the morning, then ate lunch together. In the afternoon, Sunny went to a spa and Teppei would assist Yosaku or go troll the Food Lodge for odd jobs and to meet with old acquaintances.

It gave them both enough time to get to know each other better. It also gave Sunny time to realize that Yosaku was avoiding him.

Any time he'd try to corner the Reviver out of earshot of Toriko, Yosaku would make some excuse to go back over, or grin and tell Sunny they'd talk later.

Finally, one day Sunny cornered him smoking out on the stairs.

"Yosaku, tell me about Earth," Sunny said bluntly.

"I'll tell you everything I know after Toriko's better," he replied.

"So helping you out is my payment," Sunny guessed.

"Nope."

"Then why?! Just tell me now, and I'll still help out. Even I can tell his recovery is going to be a fraction of the time you said. I can spare it."

"It's not Toriko you're still here for, is it?" Yosaku winked.

"That's right, I'm here about Earth," Sunny leveled his gaze.

Yosaku sighed and wandered off.

Things were starting to get hard for Teppei. He had commisions he needed to take for the money, and so he asked Yosaku one night if he could go. Yosaku nodded. "Sunny's here to help, after all. Take some time, it'll be for the best."

Teppei wasn't sure what that meant, but still he took some days off to go track down the last known location of Lavender Lotus and found a few seeds. By the end of the week, he'd helped a wild population bloom again, and returned home with a few for cultivation and preservation.

"Where have you been?!" Sunny's shriek greeted him at the door. "You left me to feed this monster by myself!"

"Hey, Teppei," Toriko smiled.

Teppei shrugged. "I had to take a job. I have to support myself too."

Sunny stared at him oddly. "Is that a Lavender Lotus?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I revived them. Some couple wanted them at their wedding, but turns out they'd gone extinct in the wild. Well, there might be some out there, but they needed them right away and figured the easiest way was to revive a recently deceased population."

"It's beautiful." Tendrils of hair caressed the purple petals of the large flower.

"You can have that one," Teppei said. "I've got seeds; those are more useful to me anyway."

"You mean it?" Sunny's eyes lit up.

"Sure." He handed over the flower in its tiny portable vase.

Other than Sunny's strangely amiable greeting, nothing of note happened that day, and the next day he joined Sunny hunting in the norming.

It felt good, familiar. The fields were ripe with memories of he and Sunny hunting, and suprisingly he found those as comforting as the images in the woodgrain of his bedroom walls.

"Lunch?" Teppei asked when they'd amassed a small pile of greens and mammals. Breeze on his ears tickled, as did Sunny's commanding hair. Teppei could sense the microfilments in clearer detail now. Some of them stopped and rested on his body.

"No thanks, I have to prepare for dinner," Sunny said.

"Oh," said Teppei. I guess I'll see you tomorrow then."

"No, you'll see me tonight. At dinner."

"Where?" The word was out of his mouth before he could think to decline, to question.

"House on the Rock. You know it?"

Teppei gasped. "But that's fancy!"

"Who do you think you're talking to? I'm Sunny, the beauty of the Four Kings, and I prefer harmonious establishments. It's my treat."

A/N: House on the Rock was a restaurant near where I grew up, I think. It wasn't actually in the city, so I had no idea what it looked like. If someone went there, it was like going to a foreign country. In my head, it is still so unimaginably fancy that it would put a four-star restaurant to shame.