A blind date? A blind date.

[Sia]

For whatever strange reason, Yukari Rei had actually agreed to something peculiar that her mother had happened to arrange for her. A blind date, of all things, was not exactly something that Rei had have given much thought to, but, then again she'd not particularly had much luck looking for someone to call a partner on her own. So, she had agreed, somewhat reluctantly at first, but as the time drewer newer she decided she may as well really give it an honest try. Who knows, you never really did know when someone was just going to change your life.

Or fall into your lap. Rei had set out into the village a while ago, having run a few errands around the town before she decided to go home and freshen up. She really had not the slightest inkling of what the boy could be like, she wondered what type of lad her mother had picked out for her to try. Geez what a way to think, she thought to herself. Rei was rather bored, she was both anxious and not, and arrived early to the tea shop, finding herself the only customer and the place to be rather cozy, and private. There were drawn curtains every which a way around all of the tables, and the music was just loud enough that she was sure that whatever conversations took place here, they were entirely not overheard. How neat.

She made her way to a table sheepishly and waited around, passing the time by reading a book, a rather funny and sometimes inappropriate book known as make-out tactics that she knew her mother would never approve of her having. When another customer entered the room, Rei was excited for a moment, but then it quickly faded away once Rei realized it was a woman, and probably not the boy she was waiting for. She had really, really cool hair though, and Rei couldn't help but admire it, then realize with much embarrassment that she was staring as the girl did, in fact, make her way closer towards Rei's table. "Oh, shit..." Rei muttered under her breath.

[Kanade]

Kanade had a habit of dressing to the nines in these sorts of situations, and she had a customer at her own restaurant that wouldn’t stop talking about her daughter. Rei this, Rei that, you should meet my daughter Rei. She finally agreed to the blind date in an off-hand way so that the woman would leave her restaurant so she could close up.

Certainly smelling of the spices of the day wasn’t the best thing, so she had gone back to her house to freshen up. The cold stone of the Enkouten compound had given way to Kanade’s style of living and she knew that the dress that she wore tonight would either impress or scare off this girl that she had been set up with. She had put on a golden cat-eye make-up with dull orange eyeshadow, had traced her lips with a golden eyeliner pencil, the same one she used for her eyes, after putting on obsidian black lipstick to outline them. Her hair, she had braided into a short braid and had heated her hair up to cut it to a shorter shoulderblade length, but had let the braid rest on her collarbone.

For her dress, she had gone with a golden draped collar, backless metallic cami dress and with the lights from the candles all around the restaurant she walked into the room dripping in gold. Or at least that was how she hoped she looked. She had asked the waiter to escort her to the table that held her blind date, Rei, at it and hoped that it wasn’t someone that couldn’t keep up with her, as being a kunoichi she knew that the rigors of her lifestyle weren’t suited to the general public. Being gone for long periods of time without knowing whether she would be home safe, or letting her partner do the same wasn’t for everyone.

She had learned that the hard way.

“Yukari, Rei?” Kanade smiled, her white teeth a stark contrast to the artificially blackened lips and gold outline she had drawn, “I think I’m your date.” She waited to be invited into the seat across from the girl and admired that she was not only a kunoichi, which ticked the first box, but an experienced one from the fuuinjutsu that otnamented her body, running delicately up and down both arms. Shrewd woman, this one’s mother.

[Sia]

Gold. Everything was gold and Rei for one most certainly liked it. Her posture shifted, she couldn't help it, she sat up a little straighter and crossed her leg over the other under the table and smiled against her will, but could only barely make eye contact at first, her eyes glanced away, to the outfit, but then back up to her eyes, yes, her...

Kanade's makeup was much more sophisticated than Rei's, but Rei knew she looked nice today as well, and she gazed longly at the entire outfit and muttered a "Y--yeah, that's m-me." She said and gestured across from her, starting to sort of get up in the process and hitting her crossed legs on the table and then immediately sitting back down and turning very, very red and looking downwards as her face grew hotter than it had been in years.

"Excuse me while I kill myself in the bathroom." She said very quietly to her and then pretended to drown quietly. "Sorry....anyway...I was...not expecting a....girl!" Only the last word came out excitedly, changing otherwise the entire tone of her sentence into a more positive vibe. "I'm actually happily surprised as it turns out, so...Who are you? What do you do? Can we get drinks?"

Rei hailed down an order of some alcoholic beverage she'd never heard of in her life, but it wouldn't get there just yet.

[Kanade]

Kanade took the seat as it was proffered to her and closed her eyes, exhaling slowly, well, Rei was a looker after all. Perhaps this would not be a complete strike out. Then again, she had no idea whether or not she would or even could handle Kanade or her lifestyle. The road to becoming Bannin would be a hard one, fraught with danger and time that wouldn't be spent with any sort of partner, husband, wife, fiancee, girlfriend, boyfriend, or friend with benefits. She had struck out with every relationship up till now, and well, after Shinjiro had made his last visit, she wondered whether that would be all that she was good for in relationships.

Still, he had left her a gift before he had left the village, and she had followed his instructions. She had been promiscuous with some of the Enkouten boys around, usually luring them to bed with alcohol, enough to have them tripping over themselves, but as soon as they saw her primordial form they ran, or as soon as she got them to bed they passed out. She usually just took off her clothing and snuggled up to them, letting them infer what they would about how they had spent the night.

She was tired of one night stands, she had decided opening her eyes once more, locking them onto Rei in a predatory half-lidded stare. Maybe this girl would prove to be more than that. The best way to find out was to take a dip. She thought on the questions and when the waiter came up, she ordered a lemon ginger tea. She had to hold off on the alcohol, just in case. It had only been two weeks since Shinjiro had left, she had moved back into the loft of the forge, not wanting to stay with Tandala and Cherisa and outstay her welcome. That and she couldn't bring a different man around them every other day like she had in the past couple weeks.

“So I suppose I will answer the first question first, and we’ll go from there.” She continued to look at Rei, her golden orange eyes never leaving the other girl’s face. It was customary, and she didn’t want a weak partner. If there was anyone who was going to stay in a committed relationship with a would-be Bannin of Iwagakure, it wouldn’t be someone weak, “I’m En-” She stopped and sighed, rolling her eyes, she wasn’t Enkouten yet, damnit. No matter what she introduced herself to other Enkouten like, she wasn’t Enkouten yet, “I’m Kanade.” She finally settled on it, “I do a bit of this and a bit of that to keep myself busy. My main profession is I am a Jounin.” She watched the girl’s features for any sign that she was ready to bolt, that she was intimidated by this.

“In my free time, I usually help out around the hospital with ‘terminal’ or ‘untennable’ cases. I own a restaurant called The Herbal Remedy, in the less popular part of town.” She doubted that Rei had heard of it, since it was across the street from a literal house of ill repute. “In back of that is my smithy, where I take special orders from people who probably don’t know any better.” She was going to downplay all of this. Her name wasn’t known in any of the bingo books, a faceless Jounin, an owner of an unknown restaurant, and a tinkerer in blacksmithing.

Why was her heart beating so loudly? What did her body want with the twitching of her legs, the tightening of her fingers on the hem of her dress under the table, the sweat that dripped down the back of her neck, hissing as it evaporated as soon as it touched her hair.

“What about you?” Her voice had changed pitch, without her permission of course, it had apparently landed on a register about 2 octaves higher. She willed herself to calm down as the waiter brought her tea and the other girl’s drink. She knew her name, knew her mother frequented her restaurant for some odd reason, and that was about it.

[695/???? NANOWRIMO]

[Sia]

She couldn't look away even if she'd tried, Rei's eyes were instinctually drawn into Kanade's. "Jounin you say?" I'm something of a genin myself but I have it on...hm.." Rei stumbled over her words for a moment and she kind looked upwards and to her left as she recalled, "Good authority that I am stronger than most Jounin." Rei teased Kanade with a grin and then sort of wiggled her waist and torso back and forth a few times as well as her neck and head while kinda rolling her eyes and looking off to the side.

Her drink came and she dipped one of the painted nails of hers into it, then gingerly tried the flavor. "Hm."

She took a small sip, puckered her lips afterwards into a bit of a frown as though it were sour, but then she also looked as though she'd been hit in the stomach. Internally Rei was screaming. "Ahhhhhhhhhh?!!Two...Buyah. Oh lord. What the he--". She managed to keep that part inside however, but gosh the burn in her throat was a sensation she hadn't particularly been prepared for. Oh well. She finished the rest of her drink in one go and then shuddered very visibly.

"That tastes fucking awful." She said finally. "I um...Also have it on good authority that I am stronger than some Bannin." Rei said very seriously, but very quietly so that only ever Kanade would have heard the words escape her lips.

"Sorry, I do not usually brag...However, you are...as it is...quite.... attractive..." Rei looked away off to her right but her attention immediately snapped back to Kanade's face.

"I absolutely LOVE your hair. How does it work?"

The purple eye in Rei's head blinked separately from her eyelids, which could have been missed if one had been looking anywhere other than Rei's face at the exact moment when it happened.

[Kanade]

“Jounin.” She nodded and smiled, then tilted her head, then leaned in conspiratorially, “I was a chuunin for a very long time, and was told the same thing when I was, I only recently skipped up to Jounin.” The lean forward, across the empty table besides their drinks teased the flesh hiding beneath the backless dress, the straps were really pulling their weight, not letting more skin slip than was absolutely necessary. She leaned back and smiled at the eye rolling, “Though, I am more frail than a lot of the Jounin around here, I’m more of a…” she made a couple of nonsensical seals with her right hand, smiling and winking one golden-trimmed eye at the girl sitting across from her, “So I haven’t been registered in the book of big-bads yet.” She lied. Her previous name was emblazoned in all of the bingo books, but it had a big red X through it as she was pronounced dead. She had Kintsugi to thank for that. She wondered silently for a split moment how they were doing before turning her full attention back to the girl sitting across the table.

“I’ll bet,” She giggled at the face that Rei made at her drink, not wanting to spoil a first date with anything that might seem untoward or off-putting, “I haven’t had a good drink in-” she thought back to the night with Shinjiro and shook her head, “I’ve been sober for two weeks. I used to have a bit of a bad habit.” of drinking alone until I passed out because the nightmares of Hayate chasing me were so vivid. The thoughts didn’t need to make their way out of her either. First dates are fucking hard. Let’s not scare her off before dinner even arrives.

“I do have a mean Sake though, back at my restaurant.” Kanade smiled, her bright orange eyes flickering in the firelight, looking into Rei’s own heterochromatic grey and purple eyes, “Smooth as silk and will make you silly after only half a bottle.”

The boasting of being more powerful than a Bannin, that was something indeed. It sounded like she was quite the woman. What was she doing as a genin then, she wondered. Perhaps a conversation for another night. She was here to see whether or not she and the girl were even compatible, perhaps not too much talk of work or goals tonight. “Oh, no, I don’t mind.” Kanade closed her eyes, shaking her head and smiling again, “It’s good to know I don’t have to be gentle with you. Regular people just… tire and break so easily.” What she said was correct. She had hoped that she wouldn’t break her date here, but now she could relax into the setting a bit more. She crossed one leg over the other, bringing the fabric of her dress to rest between her now exposed thighs all the way up to her hips in her dress.

“Hmmm.” She intoned, smiling, wondering whether she should give Rei the long or the short version, and decided that the long version would leave less guess work for later, and if the girl was foolish enough to burn herself on Kanade’s hair, well then, she would know what kind of fool was sitting across from her. “You see, I’m what they call a ‘primordial’ among the clan-members that call me anything civil.” She was obviously alluding to the Enkouten, but found that it drew attention when she mentioned the name with the relatively celebrated status of the clan members. It was almost a by-word in some parts of the city. Avoiding it was hard to do, but she did it so that she and Rei could have relative peace, “So that means that I have um, Magma for hair that cools to look like it does.” She reached up and patted her obsidian crusted hair, and then sighed and blinked her incandescent eyes and smiled, “And that my eyes are a bit brighter than most people’s especially in the dark or in dimly lit places.” Another couple of blinks and a look to the side to think if she was forgetting anything else, “Oh, and it means that my mood usually affects my hair’s temperature. It turns to cold obsidian when I sleep, but when I’m angry, it burns a bright yellowish-orange.” Best not to tell her about the fiery meeting of her and Shinjiro just yet. She had almost cooked him alive last he was here.

[720/???? Nanowrimo]

[Sia]

When she leaned forward towards her thats when Rei finally noticed one thing about Kanade that she was a little better off than her in, the chest area. She stared at Kanade's for a moment as she moved about and then back up at Kanade's face and said absolutely nothing about it whatsoever, she merely continued to sheepishly smile.

"I still haven't really had sake, that drink there was the worst...surely anything would have been better." She said with a face about her that said she oh so very meant it. Her face otherwise though snapped back to Kanade's face and she made googoo eyes at her with no shame whatsoever.

"Hehehe. You're a primordial." Rei instinctually kinda said it in a mocking sort of voice as though making fun of someone saying the phrase, rather than making fun of Kanade and hoped she got it. She looked at her hair though and she did quite like it and bet it was nice and warm to snuggle with, and almost blurted such out loud....then she did.

"I bet your hair was fantastic for snuggling and....whatnot." Rei began thinking of other activities that would help keep warm. For a moment Rei looked at the back of the nails on her right hand on top of the table and shifted her legs, crossing the one over the other instead of the one over the other as it was before. Her attention turned then towards the worker that had brought a lovely platter of treats, little snacks, cookies, berries, a few things in the shapes of little itty bitty tiny pigs. They were flavored custards, no larger than a quarter, but shaped like pigs. A few different flavors, Rei eyed them suspiciously and then took a green flavored one.

"Wonder what flavor that is" She said and then found the texture to be very creamy and it melted in her mouth, it was very cold. It was, as it turned out, frozen custard, basically ice cream but silly she supposed. Or refined? What flavor was it anyway? Oh, right! Pistachio? How odd.

"I can't say I've tasted anything like that before." Rei sad. Truth be told, Rei did not actually know what a pistachio was nor could she have named it as the flavor of the green pig dessert, however, she could say that the flavor was delicious because that was the only word she knew for it.

"I bet the red one is good too." Rei did enjoy food after all.

[Kanade]

"Yeah, it's a bit of a ridiculous name for the way my hair is and the 'flare ups' that I get when I am feeling a strong emotion to be honest." She smiled and relaxed a bit, it could really only be seen in her shoulders, as the dress didn't allow for bad posture, "I've been able to control it though, with some help from a friend of mine who's gone away."

She took a sip of her drink and then cleared her throat as she almost aspirated some of it, she hadn't heard that one before, the good for snuggling. She supposed that as the nights grew colder and the winter plodded along toward the darkest day of the year, she would have to agree with that sentiment, "It turns to obsidian when I'm asleep, but I suppose when I am drowsy, that might be true. She hadn't really tested to see exactly how hot her hair was when she was awake. She only knew that hair ornaments were useless, and that she had to fire-proof her pillow. Or as near as she could to fireproofing it in any case.

"From the green color I'm guessing green tea or pistachio." Kanade shrugged, "I hadn't tried pistachios until I came here, but they're quite delicious little nuts." She smiled and looked on at her bowl of oyakodon and took a small, delicate bite, careful not to mess up her makeup. She wasn't hungry, truth be told, since she had eaten before she came to the restaurant, but knew that this would probably have the smallest portion size, it almost always did in restaurants, so if she was unable to eat the rest of her food, she wouldn't be wasting food.

She also had heard which foods to stay away from if she were expecting to be expecting. The thought made her shift uncomfortably in her seat. If she did get involved with this girl, what would she think if Kanade got pregnant? Would she think anything at all? Certainly not a topic for a first date. All she had to do was hold in her baggage until the third or fourth date.

"So what's someone with strength like yours doing in the position you're in." She sipped the soup again, chewing on a bit of chicken from the sip, "I thought that the Tsuchikage was looking for people with strength to move up into higher positions." Swallowing she took a sip of her drink and raised her eyebrows to encourage an answer. The hinted strength piqued her curiosity, and she wondered whether it were true what she said or if she were trying to put on airs.

[447 towards Nanowrimo]

[Sia]

Listening very carefuly to what Kanade was saying and carefully interjected as needed. "Yeah, a tad." It was a bit ridiculous, but it was a nice royal and proper-sounding name and she actually did quite like it in a weird sort of way. She was able to control it apparently which was actually kind of cool in a way.

What the hell was a pistachio? Was the next question that ran through Rei's mind but she didn't say such things out loud.

Really, what was someone with her strength doing in her position? Well...

"You see...ah..haha..."

Rei began, "I am, as it is, very, very strong. Not just like...strong..." Rei's voice fell to a very quiet whisper and she leaned forwards and felt the warmth of Kanade's heir as she whispered in her ear. "I'm the strongest." Rei said very seriously into her ear and then almost considered licking it but thought it was maybe too soon so she pulled away.

"However...That means I stand far, far above my peers. It is hard to find anyone of equal talents at my rank to pair me up for missions with, and, because I am so strong, there are not that many low ranked missions that are realistically worth my time, yet, because I am a fruit cake....there are not high ranked missions available to me."

"To be blunt. I am simultaneously incredibly efficient and...silly." She had almost said stupid, but, she had grown to not like the word.