2025-08-14: Tension Over Noodles
- Log: Tension Over Noodles
- Cast: Shinjiro Aragaki, Hitomi Mandai
- Where: Hagakure Ramen, Iwatodai Station, Iwatodai
- OOC Date: August 14, 2025
- IC Date: June 25, 2012
- Summary: Shinjiro and Hitomi have a chance encounter at Hagakure, but it becomes tense when they talk about Hitomi's motives for joining SEES.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
It is a lazy afternoon at Hagakure Ramen located at Iwatodai Station, home of the beautifying super magic collagen ramen of the same name. Few people are inside, an older chef working the bar with only one customer, who just arrived.
Shinjiro Aragaki sits at the old ramen bar, eating tempura. He craved shrimp and vegetables, and when you're like him, sometimes you need to indulge that desire for shrimp. After his various talks with people, he's mildly lost in thought - the last time he was here, he argued with Mitsuru Kirijo about returning to school. He still can't go back to SEES, even if he's reconsidering his activity in general...
He's looking over the menu carefully to pick what he wants. He doesn't actually eat the collagen ramen, not caring about his Charm, but he's wondering if he wants to get his staple or try something new. Decisions, decisions...
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
A lazy, hazy afternoon indeed.
Time passes. Not much.
The door opens. A shadowed figure stands there, heralded by the memorable fragrance of...
... mass market shampoo.
Hitomi Mandai gazes into the room and immediately picks up the fact that there is that man, the gentleman with the beanie, the hot guy (literally, because he's wearing a bunch of clothes like a homeless person) (which, Hitomi supposes, is probably because he is a homeless person) (maybe?) (argh I'm getting torn up) (forward!!)
In she goes.
Hitomi has a bag on her shoulder. She's wearing 'civilian' attire - in this case, this means "not her uniform." The top is a babydoll-cut T-shirt with a graphic print on it - a clip of the dramatic eyes of some shoujo-manga heroine or other. (The shirt is heather gray.) Below this is a knee-length pencil skirt.
She walks to the bar and sits down. Her eyes turn towards Shinjiro... but!
"Oh - yeah - the Tuna and Pork special, certainly," she tells the counter-commander, along with a slightly weak smile. "And uh... sure, tea, yeah."
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Last time Shinjiro met Hitomi, which was in the middle of a life or death battle, she winked at him. That was odd...
The smell of mass market shampoo hits him. He tilts his head slightly, locking his gaze at Hitomi. He takes a long moment to appraise her, in his own homeless man vibe, as he eats another shrimp, dipping it in the SAUCE first. The shrimp sauce. "You were at the arcade... and in the tower," he says coolly.
He doesn't seem to mind talking about this in front of the chef. To be fair, the chef survived listening to him argue with Mitsuru Kirijo about people getting killed, so...
"Have you had that before?" he spontaneously decides to ask her, though, as she orders tuna and pork special. He wonders how it is. He still needs to decide on a main dish...
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
'He's detected me,' thinks Hitomi.
'Should I pretend not -- n/m'
"Oh," she says, turning her head to look at him and smiling in a way that suggests she might need the Charm benefit the soup may bring. "Right? This is the third time, huh! I guess that makes it fate." She folds her arms on the table then, slouching comfortably.
"Nope," she says. "I didn't ever really think about tuna in ramen... like, it's not like it's bad, but you don't really think of them going together, right? Ramen's like a hearty dish for people who want to warm up or get full on a long hard day, or who are going hog wild for a special treat. Tuna's something delicate and delectable, you want to savor it..."
"... So it's kind of a weird combination," she says. "How's the tempura, though?"
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"Tch. I don't think that's how fate works," Shinjiro shrugs. "What would even be fate about it?" He takes another piece of tempura, slowly but delicately saucing it to get it in the grooves of the shrimp without overpowering it.
Though, as she talks about the ramen, he nods, listening. "Counterintuitive, got it. I'll have to try it sometime." With their distance from each other... his clothes are clearly overpatched and stitched, as if he only wears one outfit primarily.
"The tempura's pretty good. Sauce makes it better, but the chef still knows what he's doing. There's a technique he uses, it's pretty neat." He enjoys talking about food, especially about a chef he's trained under.
He won't dwell on the tower yet, though. If she's curious about him... she'll have to figure out how to broach it first, right now.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"Fate doesn't have to be good or dramatic to be real," Hitomi says, lacing her fingers together. "I mean, like, smoke gets in your eyes no matter where you sit around a campfire, right? So that's just 'fate'. I guess you could say it's 'karma' or something, if you wanted to be fancy."
'Wow,' thinks Hitomi. 'he is super into that shrimp'
"Oh? What's the technique?" Hitomi asks. Her head rolls to the side as she looks at Shinjiro more directly, not just a glance and a 'hey sup' in passing.
'This is going well,' thinks Hitomi. 'what is with that shrimp though. seriously, it looks better than tempura usually is, but am i just being cozened by anticipation???'
Such matters must concern Hitomi from time to time.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro shrugs at that. "That doesn't sound like any karma I've heard of. I'll take your word for it."
He is *super* into that shrimp. Special treat! He doesn't usually have the money but he got paid back by someone so it's fine.
"Proprietary, probably." Shinjiro shrugs. "He taught it to me in confidence, so I can't tell you. It has to do with the way he fries it, though." A tantalizing secret... yet, no real knowledge.
There's finally a pause. "Didn't come with Fukura? Or others from your group?" He knows sometimes people eat alone, but he's curious. SEES used to eat together back in the day, sometimes, so this felt different. Though, he also got the vibe they weren't Close as a group.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi brings a hand up, fingers curling loosely as she rests a cheekbone on her knuckles. "Karma's way more complex than you think," she says. "Like you kind of imagine it as just a good and bad system, but it's way more than that."
But then there's proprietary knowledge. Secret lore. The arcane jutsus of tempura. "Makes sense... He'd probably want to sell it to a factory or something if he was going to really cash in," Hitomi muses afterwards.
"Nope," she says. "Fukura's fine, but sometimes I just go out and do stuff, you know? I was just getting hungry and didn't feel like heading all the way back to school. I hope I'm not bugging you. Did we even trade names at the, uh, the arcade?" Not the TV station.
After this Hitomi's eyes turn towards the distant production of her order. Please wait warmly. The tea is delivered, and she raises it up to ssssip.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"Huh." Shinjiro says about karma. It may be read as dismissive - it's not, he just doesn't know *what* to say to that. It sounds interesting, when put that way, but...
He does grimace, though. "Can't see him ever selling out. I'd kick his ass." There's a lopsided smirk there, as if he knows the chef heard him and is gonna laugh to that.
Though... "I get that. Just struck me as odd, compared to the old days." What old days? "I don't remember if we did. Shinjiro Aragaki. ...you're not bugging me," he admits.
As she sips her tea, he considers, briefly. "Hey, boss. I'll get what she got." He finally decides. Tuna and pork... it does sound interesting. "We'll have to see if it's any good."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi isn't going to get too preachy. "Mm," she says. "Is it bad, if it means other people get to try it? Stuff can be popular just because it's, like, actually good, you know."
She sips her tea. Her eyes turn forwards. 'Yes,' she thinks to herself. 'yesssss, I am spy master woman, aww yeah~~'
Her eyebrows lift as Shinjiro goes for the soup. The same soup she got.
"Well..."
Hitomi presses a hand to her collarbone, turning now to face Shinjiro. "I'm Hitomi Mandai, a second-year student at Gekkoukan High. Please be kind to me!" It is, maybe not sarcastic, but certainly a little bit wry as she says it. She keeps smiling faintly, like a lazy cat, without really trying about it.
"... I haven't been there for very long," she says. "You used to go there, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"Depends how much control he retains," Shinjiro sighs.
Though, as Hitomi introduces herself that way, wryly, he's even more confused about her. It reads clearly on his face, he thinks she's... odd. "Sure, whatever."
Though, the question gets him thinking. He takes another shrimp, dipping it finely in the sauce again to give himself thinking time. "I technically left two years ago. School considers me truant, though." It's not a secret. But what is...
"They don't talk about me in the club, do they? Don't blame them, don't mind, but it's weird how many of you ask me similar questions. The three of us were pretty tight-knit, back in the day." Could only be two other people, with the context... the founding members of SEES. He's given this info out, so he doesn't mind telling yet another member.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"After two years, I mean, that's starting to be more like dropping out, isn't it?" Hitomi asks, sipping her tea. But then...
She doesn't talk.
"Mm," Hitomi says. "Not really." She shifts herself, both hands wrapping around the tea cup. "I kind of got... not... forced but they invited me very firmly after some, stuff in Sumaru, and I just went along with it, but nowadays..."
"I mean it wasn't even really a group for a while," Hitomi says. A long pause.
"... Just the three of you, huh?" she continues, more quietly.
"Did you guys... know each other growing up, or anything?"
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"That's what I say. But Kirijo insists I come back." Shinjiro seems to dislike the idea of that. "Bet she's pulling strings to keep me in the records."
As she doesn't talk, he waits, finishing off his shrimp. "Sounds like them," he says. Not a group, huh... a very different vibe, maybe.
"Aki and I are like brothers. We grew up at the same orphanage since we were single digits. We met Kirijo in middle school, started up SEES. We never got very far into the tower, though."
A sigh. "It doesn't seem like it's the same group, though. There's like, more than a dozen of you now."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi watches as Shinjiro speaks, one hand leaving her teacup to do that loose curl with her cheekbone against the knuckles. It puts a slight quirk in her lips, just from the gentle squash of the rest of her face.
"Yeah," Hitomi says. "It's a lot of people."
She sips her tea.
"But that means it's noisy," she says, "and that people are arguing and everything. I kind of feel like at some point there's going to be a fight, probably around something really dumb... like someone's just going to get so ticked off things go bad, fast. Hopefully it won't be more than a really awful night, but with nobody getting that hurt, you know?" Hitomi exhales then, and looks away.
"Maybe I'm just a pessimist."
A couple of beats pass. "So you guys... started it? The, club, the group, I mean. I kinda thought it was pretty much official. I didn't even know old-ass people could, you know, do things," Persona reference without *saying* it in front of ramen people, "but apparently they can? I heard about something on a beach? But I guess there's less to offer people who are all, grown, up. Oh, wait, is that --"
It's not either of their orders!! Hitomi huffs.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro considers the pessimism. It makes sense. "Why are you there, then?" It seems like an easy answer, but... "You don't *have* to be, just because they 'very firmly' invited you."
Though, about founding the club... "Everything's official if a Kirijo is involved." He shrugs. "Kirijo recruited Aki, I followed along." He's not going to talk about why he quit, though, it seems. "Oh, damn, they really don't communicate."
Their food seems to be just about done, but NOT QUITE YET.
"There's people like us all over the place. Most of them are adults, to my knowledge, except for the gaggle in Gekkoukan." A pause. "Check out a website called Dark Side of Sumaru. It's a forum, dig deep and you'll find the good stuff. Might give you some information that SEES doesn't have."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Why are you there, then, he asks.
Hitomi considers for a moment. Her eyes turn down at the table. "Because I ruined my life so I didn't have much else going on and at least nobody's yelling at me?"
She makes another sip of her tea. NOW the food is being plated. Looks like it had to cook up extra noodle. Her lips purse at the mention of all these -adults- with the power of -Persona- and probably not even needing an Evoker.
But she diesn't, either. (Shinjiro might not have had the chance to notice.) "... I'll check it out, but... I mean, I kind of already know what's out there, at --"
FOOD!
"Thanks for the meal~!" Hitomi says as she snaps her chopsticks and shifts her bowl around. A sliver of tuna is collected and popped in her mouth ("mmh,") followed by a sluuuuurp of noodles. It's not messy, exactly, but it's not DAINTY either. Homph slurp gulp.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
As food comes out, Shinjiro is silent. In the end, he takes a waft of the tuna, and then...
"Tch. That's a bad reason."
He just puts it out there, like that. He waits until the chef is busy cooking again before continuing.
"That's not a reason to dance to another's tune in a 'job' where every life hangs on the balance. If your only reason to fight is because it could be worse... then you're just wasting your life. You've got years ahead of you, make it better, don't cut your life expectancy down out of a sense of defeatism."
This might just seem like bullying. But it's not. It's a cautionary tale, from someone who *doesn't* have years left. But even so...
"I won't tell you to quit. That's not my place. But get a better reason and own it."
And then, he begins to eat. The tuna... is actually really good with ramen, huh.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi's slurping of the noodles...
Stops.
Her eyes turn towards Shinjiro, but not her head. A sidewise look from outside of the scope of her glasses. Her eye, unfiltered. Focusing on him. Her lips are pursed. The process of eating the ramen veils some of it.
Something about it got up her nose.
"... yeah, well, doing that is how I ended up like this in the first place," she says, voice quieter, slightly deeper, and stifled afterwards with an angry slurping of noodles. Yes! It's angry! You can tell from the force in the slurp. Subtle, but there.
Uneasy silence.
Hitomi heaves a huge sigh but it doesn't turn into words. She shifts herself then, facing forwards, not looking at Shinjiro, just looking down at the noodles. Her glasses fog up. She stirs them, disconsolately.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
As Hitomi gets angry, Shinjiro tchs again. "People die in this field. I've seen it with my own two eyes." A pause. "Do you want that to be you, or caused by you, because you weren't truly dedicated?"
Though, in the end, he relents, sighing. "Whatever. I'm not there, it's not up to me. Just know that it seems like Kirijo will take anyone with two working thumbs and a sense of the weird." Despite the words, it doesn't seem like he *has distaste* for Mitsuru. Just... a fact. He also doesn't have *distaste for Hitomi*, just her motives.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi's lips thin together. She seems to be struggling. Reaching for something. Her jaw tightens for a moment as she looks down at the bowl of soup. Her mouth opens for a moment. She seems about to say something.
Then her shoulders slump and she exhales. She takes another slurp of the noodles, this time with less gusto. Then the chopsticks rest; she swirls the soup with the spoon, lifting it up to her lips and taking a taste.
Soup gives her courage.
"... well, you're normal," she says, "you're not having to stop yourself constantly from doing, stuff, you can focus. If I'm able to do something useful out of this shitty head and shitty luck, I'll call it good." More soup swirling.
"It's kinda funny," she says, "saying about how people could die."
Hitomi does not clarify this, at least not immediately. She takes another spoon-slurp, though.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Hitomi's meal is being ruined... Shinjiro feels a little bad about that, but he gets annoyed at something she says as he nearly finishes his own.
"I'm not normal." It's plain and simple. Even if they both mean in different ways... he's not.
The funny part causes him to tch more though, actually frustrated. "It's not! Don't you underst-"
He starts coughing. Is it the soup? Did it go down the wrong pipe? Or is this related to the time he started coughing blood across the floor of Tartarus?
"I'm fine," he says as if he says it all the time, answering the question indirectly, before going back to try and finish his soup. Even the ramen chef seems worried - the guy knew him, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
He's not normal!
Hitomi's teeth grind just a little. "I -" she begins, before he starts to cough. Hitomi's mouth gawps and opens and closes for a moment as she looks at him with concern. Concern perhaps, but no mobility. Staring, perhaps, wondering if she's somehow--
He's fine, he says.
Hitomi blinks for a moment, shifting her weight on the seat and looking towards the chef wordlessly.
"... sorry," she mutters, sounding more deflated than 'genuinely sorry' or even 'sarcastic.' She eats the rest of the noodles, but this may just be rote behavior: put material in mouth, chew, swallow. She sips the broth the same way.
She doesn't really finish it. (Is she going to gain Charm from this? OBVIOUSLY NOT!) Money comes out, though, set down. She doesn't get up right away, but she's not looking over at Shinjiro any more.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
As Hitomi deflates, Shinjiro sighs. "Sure," he says. He fucked up again, didn't he? These rookies don't deserve this. He finishes his food, before rising, paying the counter with a little bit extra to cover the nuisance.
He'll head off to the alleys. He probably won't penance sleep there, only because Myunghon will frown at him, but he's gonna be out late.