2026-06-16: Choco for Two
- Log: Choco for Two
- Cast: Shiryuu Ryouhara, Umie Akabane
- Where: Yumezaki Ward, Shibuya
- OOC Date: June 16, 2026
- IC Date: November 25, 2012
- Summary: Umie decides to be the one who surprises Shiryuu this time. This creates a series of misunderstandings that leaves them in the middle of an expensive hotel room wrestling over complimentary chocolate, as two mature well-adjusted adults in a relationship do.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
The gunmetal grey worksite that used to be a surging nightclub not so many months ago is still a bit of a mess, but it's no longer a closed off fire hazard, the development company in charge of cleanup having shipped off the last haz-mat truck just last month. At least the workcrew are no longer walking on eggshells, and the amount of thieves and ruffians have gone down.
It's an overall frigid morning at the sprawling collection of scrap metal surmounted by scaffolding and buttressed by canary yellow earthmovers. It's understaffed today on the field due to the weekend, and only a few people working mandatory overtime and a few dedicated kouhais are around, mostly erecting a new scaffold over the northern facade for dismantling, the only part of the Club Harai building that wasn't melted into an iron spaghetti. Well, that and...
There is a distinct reason that Shiryuu's so-called safehouse in Sumaru was such a distinctly seedy location -- it's the closest hotel (with hotel being a strong word for the tourist trap and self-described 'samurai club' of COLORFUL! SAMURAI ICHI) with a good view of the worksite. Which is, _entirely apparently_, the place Shiryuu actually works at.
Or so SAMURAI! Kenjiro thinks. ('Oh no, the grey guy's hottie friend is back D: what do i do' he comments under his breath, if Umie bothers to ask him anything)
What is actually much harder is -finding- him. The boy apparently doesn't go by his name at the worksite, and most attempts to describe him will immediately fail. At least until you actually get to the kouhais on site.
Regarded as 'the karate FNG' by most of the work crew, Umie can find him in the corner of the worksite, trying to wire a neon sign with the telltale triple-hex logo of Harai on it. It's been haphazardly repaired and the boy has it attached to one of the inverters on the work trucks, long yellow cables and gator clips strung across the grey ground to the sign. It was ostensibly supposed to be his birthday present to work on it, since he's the EDN nerd in the crew who carries around the prop from the guy who died in the fire here.
At least it was supposed to be. The boy is wearing an eyebleeding shade of safety yellow winter work jacket over coveralls, hair haphazardly all jammed into a work hat as he kneels behind the sign with a pair of lineman pliers and a driver board that looks like it's been taped together.
BZZT. A set of sparks arc ten feet across the worksite. "OW! ...fuck."
A couple of the more seasoned guys laugh. Shiryuu gives them a glowering, flat look from under the brim of his work cap. "...there's no worse fate," he grumbles.
They laugh harder.
Workers are a surly bunch.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"I can't believe I'm doing this..." Umie swears beneath her breath as she boards the train to Sumaru City for the second time in the same week. The first time was bringing Ren to see Akechi's place of work, in order to maybe ease him out of whatever funk he may have over Akechi's admittedly disappointing behavior.
..... which brings her to a critical difference (in her mind) between Ren and Akechi, and.... whatever the hell she's doing here, on her own. As far as Umie's concerned, Ren and Akechi are friends. Not 'just' friends, but friends. If there's something else there, that's their business, and their right to keep private. Ren is a teenager, and she's just his enabling work senpai.
Her eyelids lower, as she looks at the faint reflection she leaves in the window. ... No, it's to make up for the sort of person she was, well over a year ago: so caught up in her own problems that she didn't see others around her.
And didn't that make her just as troublesome here, if she kept waiting for Shiryuu to come to her, rather than the other way around? (also Ren and Akechi are friends, again, she is simply just thinking of Shiryuu because he has a possible place of work here!!! It's just a coincidence that she wants to see Shiryuu. Just. A. Coincidence.)
Getting off the train and navigating the subway, Umie emerges topside, drawing her scarf closer over her mouth to guard against a chilly morning wind. The white hood is in turn drawn over her head as she headed into seedier locale, trying to avoid drawing the attention of any wayward eyes.
The COLORFUL! SAMURAI ICHI sign hangs within eyesight of the worksite, where Umie finds her first clue. "Thank you~" she murmurs with a pleased grin at SAMURAI! Kenjiro for the information, then turning back towards the door. (Kenjiro has no hope, but he does get her thanks, at the very least.)
This, however, did not continue into a consistent pattern; Shiryuu's supposed 'co-workers' didn't seem to know who the hell he was. Maaayyybbe she was a little too quick to give SAMURAI! Kenjiro such a pleasant (if entirely demure) thank you.
And it's not like she can just waltz on in to a dangerous worksite.
A few kouhais manage to make her day, however, even if she's tempted to get out her phone to see what the heck 'FNG' means. (There can be no way it's anything good, right??)
They're even nice enough to show her the 'EDN nerd', perhaps as a bit of a setup for a laugh, or else, a gesture of good will.
Umie is polite enough to wait, at least, until he's shocked and made a fool of himself (and nearly caused a workplace incident. yeah, yeah, that's GOT to be her boy). "... Hello~" she purrs, pitched slightly low. "I'm looking for someone." She taps a red-nailed finger against her chin coyly. "They say he may be on break soon, but with me showing up out of the blue, it'd be understandable if he has other plans."
She gives Shiryuu a little gremlin smile. "And in that case, I probably did a few workplace violations just coming her to confirm, so I'll be on my way now, if you don't mind~"
Gestures can speak louder than words.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
He picks up the leads to the multimeter, a boxy device sitting on the ground. Touching the probes to the terminal screws, Shiryuu is currently in the grumpy process of checking for voltage, clicking the switch once. Twice. Then a third time. "Wh-- how..." Is the neutral wrong? What kind of devilry is this equipment!
It's a few sparks and a couple grumbled curses later that Ryouhara becomes aware of a stir being kicked up among the hardworking kouhais. Many of them are called FNG as well, though in this particular worksite there are designations for each one -- there's Napping FNG, there's Godzilla FNG, there's Ahnold FNG. Karate FNG is just one of many of the crew, though there is a certain amount of special bemusement with the idea that he almost set the foreman's trailer ablaze working on his so-called birthday present. Apparently he took a day off and they haven't let him off the hook for it yet.
At the very least, they are more well behaved than SAMURAI! Kenjiro, who is probably still trying to mop up his nosebleed. They _are_ more well behaved right?
That silken purr hits the boy like a hammer, causing him to freeze in place mid-crouch and the fine hairs on the back of his neck to stand on-end. "U--umie--" the boy starts.
ZAP. "augh!" More sparks fly over the gremlin's head.
"OI! FNG!" Oh no. The kouhais are well behaved. That says nothing about the senpais, who have taken the appropriate amount of interest in this development. "NAISU work!" one shouts. "Ganbatte!" goes another, from up on the scaffold. "Cutie! Aim for MAXIMUM LOVE! Explode your body ONE HUNDRED TIMES!"
That's all Shiryuu can stand. "(OI HEY! SHAT UP!. GET YOUR ASS OFF MY ASS!)" he points accusingly at the senpais just past Akabane, angrily yelling over the sound of an air compressor in perfect(?) English. Now he's standing. And literally everybody but him thinks it's hilarious.
Someone in the background is making fun of him about not karate exploding them, shaking their hands in mock helplessness. The boy in the day-glo yellow hat sighs, long-suffering and sword-long, placing his hands on his hips. She'll notice he's given in and is even wearing the standard issue worksite boots, if she's paying any attention. It just makes his defeat all the more miserable.
A sprig of grey pops out from under his hat across this nose, giving him a terrible itch. And now he's trying not to sneeze.
"...ieeeh," Shiryuu replies uncomfortably, scratching the back of his head. "....er, sorry." It's about the best he can do, as his nose dimples and his expression straightens. "eeh. It's fine, we're just ... we're just... doing some pickup work. I'll ask to be let off.." He sniffs, "..early." A hand is in his pocket. "Do you want to wait ... over... over... at my place? AAh. Let me get you the--"
ACHOO!
His room keys fall in the dirt. "....sigh."
("YEAH! THAT'S THE GOOD TIME!") ("_OH MY GOD_!")
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
The lightning arcing over Umie's head does manage to make her stiffen, eyes widening with a twitch that isn't quite as ~electrifying~ as her earlier greeting. as this is a normal kill-kill kind of lightning where a Persona can't help save Umie's ass from her foolish nonsense.
But it doesn't deter her for very long. "My, my, I say a few words and sparks are already flying~" The two-bunned devil is grinning that mischevious, crooked grin at Shiryuu while she's turned away from his fellow kouhais and senpais directly towards him, then drawing it back to an innocent, sweet sort of smile as she ~just so happens~ to angle her face back where it may be visible to a wider audience.
Their reactions might be unwelcome to Umie in some contexts, but here, in this space, she *delights* in it, because of where it places 'Karate FNG'. "Oh?" she muses, innocently, shyly covering her mouth. "... How embarrassing, you've already told everyone~?"
Annnnd there. Hearing Shiryuu's magnificent accented English, Umie hide her laugh behind the cheap knit of her red scarf, balled up in her hand. "Yeah. Don't let me cause an accident," she says, her tone more relaxed and casual. "I just wanted to be the one who went to see you instead of the other way around. It's only fair, right?"
He's just... too adorable in this form, whether it's purely an act or a consequence of having to keep a low profile. The sprig of grey hair itching at his nose, the boots, the cute little nickname-- hardly the indominable 'Shirogarasu' that has kidnapped people and done many nefarious acts on the NWO's behalf.
She can make believe he's not someone that may force her to make some hard decisions, down the road, and that some of this performance is a reflection of some quieter, less seen part of his personality.
But it'd only be pretend.
What isn't pretend is how she moves over to pick up the keys, swinging them around on her index finger before she runs a hand up and carefully, with her thumb, tucks that offending hair of his back out of his way. "Sounds like a plan," she says, fainting touching her thumb against his cheek before she dips back. "You'll have to give me directions, of course... maybe text them. I don't want your co-workers trying to catch a peek, later." The house keys loop around on her finger, then are clutched in her hand. "See you, Ka-ra-te-kun."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
There is no part of Shiryuu that condones any of this behavior.
To his merit, most of the crew wishes him well enough that they are not explicitly trying to ruin his chances at finally getting up the nerve to talk to a girl (several of them were very sure he was gay.) As a result, the minor crash out seems to tame the wild boys to at least a manageable degree, which gives Ryouhara at least the chance to explain.
"Wh--!" he protests. "I'm not just some... oshaberi scum!!" Apparently, being a gossip is worse than being a traitor. The boy takes a minute to fold his arms. It's obviously intended to show that he takes no guff. "I wouldn't tell them anything." He pauses, his shoulders dropping, and along with it any illusion of being tough.
Luckily, at least he really is invincible, according to him. An act isn't necessary. Right. Right. Wait. What was she saying?
"Told everyone _what?_" The boy shoots her a suspicious look, trying to suss out the gremlin's intent.
It's not like they're getting married yet or ... anything ... !!
Shiryuu's mouth is drawn tight, as he tries to tell himself sneezing is just a natural side effect of the dry air, and Umie gets _entirely_ too close to do him the favor of picking up his keys. The lowly wage worker doesn't really have the agility to evade, and in his attempt to dodge her without making it very obvious, almost falls over in his thick stomping boots. Flailing in that criminal disaster of a neon safety jacket, the boy finally settles back onto his center of gravity while also making room for Umie to lean down and --
Lean down and uh --
Shiryuu shoots an icy look that's rated E, for Everyone. Right up until his eyes cross when she reaches over into his space and tucks his hair. Oh the guys love that. "h--hey, don'--"
She can feel his face heat up in the cold. It takes everything he has to avoid showing weakness and blushing. Can ninjas actually slow their heart rate down?
Don't let her win, Shiryuu.
"..." The boy pulls his cap down until his eyes are entirely gone. "... it's .. just .." He's across the street? Or .. maybe.. ah? He's about to say a lot of things, but there is an entire audience between him and her, and Shiryuu's hyperawareness is not allowing him to forget a single one. "..Right. And.. uh... the sparks were not because .. you said .. it was just a happenstance, alright? There's a lot of dangerous stuff here." Why is he still on that?
"Wait, co-- .. get a peek of what?!" Shiryuu manages to take one half step after her, reaching a hand to the back of his head before hissing under his breath. "Great..."
"Yoo~hoo~ KARATE LOVER FNG, put away the lipstick it's lunch time!" "YEAR OF OUR LORD 2012!!" Shiryuu yells back. "Get a better view, beanhead!"
He'll text her.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Told everyone what? Umie gives Shiryuu a brief little gremlin smile before gently pressing her fingertips to her cheeks. "... It's too embarrassing... you want me to talk openly? About.... that~"
Don't let her win, Shiryuu.
Still, her expression isn't cruel, or pitying; there's a doting care to her touch, knowing how things like that annoy him more than the wayward hairs that manage to keep out of his eyes.
A touch of her thumb to his cheek, just to note her affection, but pulled away before it becomes more than a cheeky annoyance.
Don't let her win, even as she extends her hand out to you to help you up.
It's these sorts of moments that add a texture and depth to Shiryuu that is... honestly rather enticing to Umie. Perfection was never something she was attracted to, despite often expecting it of herself.
'... it's .. just ..'
It's unfair, is what it is. Umie has shown her capacity for blushing and weakness so many times in front of Shiryuu, lacking the societal pressure to be anything but attractively resilient enough to deal with everyday life. The coy little minx that plagues her mental landscape provides the push to keep the more authentic emotions under wraps.
Things like love, and fear, and genuine weakness, with no wry humor or sarcasm to offset it.
"Ahh~ You're making sure I don't feel responsible... You're so kind..." The sparks were because he was trying to correct some flaw or get some insight into some issue, she's sure. Those hands aren't callused just because he's been running from rooftop to rooftop, that's for sure.
A peek of what, he asks, as Umie begins walking away.
"Oh, you're trying to preserve my honor! How sweet of you~" Umie says, tilting her tone just so, like a violinist's fingers weaving vibrato into a trailing end of a note.
"Take care of him, he's precious to me," she says to Shiryuu's co-workers, as she exits the site.
Outside the worksite, the house keys in hand, Umie places the fingertips of her left hand against her cheek, her wrist close enough to hear the lucky bell charm jingle, so close to her ear.
Her cheeks are warm. It's a pleasant feeling.
She foolishly allows herself to sit in it, head dipping backwards, her eyes closed, before the hairs on the back of her neck begin to prickle.
He'll text her soon, right?
....
...... was it too much?
Wait, no. He straight up kidnapped someone. This is the least she can do.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
_at any rate, umie._
Shiryuu does, in fact, have a problem. No, after the little stir that the 'uwooh! what a cutie! how did you do that KFNG??' started at the worksite that he'll now be trying studiously to keep from being the entire next week's gossip, he doesn't have any problems with getting off early. ('Who would have thought? She even said you were precious!! That's the Harai spirit. Go show her your inner tiger, karate-kun,' the foreman said, and Shiryuu almost died.)
No, the more salient problem is now Shiryuu is thinking. Not having any concept of the idea that Umie could be doing anything other than trying to get one up on him, the boy moodily leaves the worksite, closing the drive gate behind him. "....text me directions," the boy sighs, thinking.
"....what's that even mean...."
She knows where he's staying at. She's been there before. Does that mean she's expecting him to be somewhere different? The boy, still wearing his neon cap, makes an eyeless face about it. To be fair, SAMURAI! Ichi is a little run down for his standards. And he still doesn't know why the window princess hates him specifically. There is a greater emergency to contemplate though, and it keeps him on task.
Princesses seem to be his bane.
That does it. Shiryuu splits his red phone with probably more theatricality than he intended. Dialing three times faster than normal, he lifts the red blazoned handset to his ear, and waits for the end to pick up.
"Listen, I need a favor."
To Shiryuu's merit, he does text Umie back, though it's only after a little bit that he does. > sorry. i had to put the boss in his place.
Right.
> anyway. here's the directions to my real place. [link]
> i'm told they recently changed the locks, so you'll have to get a keycard at the front desk. i put your name on the list, so you'll be good.
The link Shiryuu gives is an actual hotel that is not themed, an upscale place a few blocks away called the Prince. There is in fact, a room there, and there is a keycard waiting for her.
There does not look like there's been a keyed lock in the hotel in at least a decade, and certainly not a lock that would take a very clearly marked SAMURAI! Ichi key. So, there's that. Did he literally just get a new hotel room on the spot?
It's not even been a half hour. It's not even check-in time. How much money did he just spend??
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
What does it mean? Umie's not here to give Shiryuu any clues; she had just kept on moving forward. She knew he had several spots he stayed at, and each may need to be a secret to keep attackers, assassins, and very nosy girlfriends at bay. (Well, the last part she simply assumed-- the part about them needing to be kept semi-secret, not the girlfriend part.)
As such, when she doesn't get a text a few minutes afterwards.... Ah, so. This is what it feels like.
Being moderately attractive in high school, with good grades, a reasonable personality, and nothing out of the ordinary outside of the very things she kept tucked and hidden into herself, Umie's had her share of boyfriends, but those anxiety high moments staring at her phone for a text or call was often plagued with paranoia of another kind.
When will she have to end this? When will she react to something that wasn't there, and be found out? When will they find a bruise or wound that shouldn't be there, from a night out that got a little too wild? When will they find out she's a liar, or a coward, or even worse, a murderer?
When will they find out she's not who she says she is?
When will they become disappointed or disgusted in her?
Her heart is racing in her chest. She's anxious, because she's afraid he won't text her back. That's it. It's so normal, so within the scope of things everyday people deal with, that Umie wants to cry.
She doesn't, of course.
'It won't last, you know. He's your enemy~'
"... shut up..." Umie says, under her breath, as a passer-by hesitates, then moves on, seeing how the girl in the white hoodie is continuing on, red scarf fluttering in the late fall wind.
Please call back.
What happens to be an ordinary amount of time later, Umie gets a text on her second (or third?) loop around the block. She gets her phone out instantly, then blinks. ".... Eh?"
That's... not the address she was expecting at all.
-----LATER-----
.... Wait. Wait. Waaiiiiiit.
"What did you do this time, Umie Akabane," she asks herself, as she quietly holds up the key closer to her face, comparing it with the keycard.
Maaayybbe he wanted some privacy, or wanted to put her in a different location....?
Screwing her mouth tight, she opens the door.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
The Prince is a fairly upscale hotel, a round tower that nicely overlooks Yumezaki, and by dint of that fact, is a little set aways from the neon trap where the Club Harai site is. It's clearly a business-class hotel, with enough on-site amenities that a busy salaryman could have dinner, drink and conduct most of his meetings without ever leaving the premises, with an on-site Chinese restaurant, a lounge, even a little konbini.
Honestly, the contemporary bent, the sprawling lobbies and elevators make it seem more like a convention center, or the American casinos in the movies.
So in short, it is absolutely not SAMURAI! Ichi.
The room itself is ridiculous, if ridiculous were a tiny house inside of a hotel. The vast wedge-shaped room scrolls across a pie slice of one of the hotel's upper floors, with a bed across from a stand and a few seats across from the vista view outside. Weirdly geometric feats of cabinetry that are clearly supposed to be tables are set out in front of the massive bay window to be friends with the tiny chairs, and a TV sits in a frame between the outer and inner halves of the room.
An opaque semicircular crystal wall filters the light, separating the bed from a small dip into a tiled area for the jetted tub and isolated washroom tastefully, holding up a modicum of privacy while still allowing for the natural light to filter through the room in total. There is a small amenities bar meant to be a demilitarized zone between the bed area and the washing area, with a table and chairs set up around it in the intermediary, enough for a tiny card game to break out -- all in all, there's enough room to entertain eight or so people comfortably, though the bed situation could get a little cramped.
All of the portraits and wall hangings are very abstract, tasteful, and are hung on nearly any wall that'll support them, a nonsensical geometric shape spattered onto a canvas hanging above the bed. Oh, yes, speaking of --
The bed is absolutely -plastered- with rose petals.
The amount of vanilla on tap in the air is palpable, commensurate to the aura of an ice cream master. All the while, red roses have been put on every table and every living area, as if someone came in with a botany shotgun and fought off loveless terrorists. It's absolutely out of hand. There's a box of chocolates on one of the tables. And someone folded a dog out of the towels and left it on the bed. A card cheerfully thanks the recipient for choosing Prince hotels. Please leave a '10' on our survey on www dot...
Someone evidently mistakenly said the word 'girlfriend' to the staff on the phone.
Now, enter Shiryuu.
A neon yellow disaster radius comes barrelling through the lobby after running full-tilt across Yumezaki. Naturally, naturally the elevator on -his side- of the complex is out. Naturally, naturally he doesn't think to check the other side, being a person prone to decision making. So naturally, the boy is -running- up the glass escalators, taking each step two at a time. "Agh-- pardon me-- coming through!"
'Oof.' 'Unf.' 'You bison!' 'Argh!' 'How rude!' 'S-sorry!' He has to get there and make sure Akabane doesn't get into something that is going to give her any reason to cause him grief!!
He's not even aware of her tiny crashout.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
".... smells like someone crushed a can of vanilla spray in here..." Umie coughs and waves her hand in front of her face as she's hit with the smell.
It's not unpleasant, just unexpected.
....
"... This is..."
Umie isn't a stranger necessarily to shows of wealth, but the sorts an upper middle class family displays is far more contained that the extravagant shows of luxury shown here.
Stepping out of her sneakers, Umie stalks from one side of the hotel room to the other, easing out a piece of chocolate from a quickly opened box on one of the tables.
Chocolates. Vanilla. Flowers everywhere. A towel tied into the shape of a dog.
_A bed littered with rose petals._
"... Huh...."
This is... payback, right? It doesn't *feel* like something Shiryuu would do, but does Umie really know Shiryuu like she *thinks* she knows Shiryuu? She *did* run a thumb against his cheek. That's, like, *super* flirting for either of them.
(Makeouts do not count as flirting, as there is nothing subtle about making out. Tonsils are being touched, there is no level of subtle that can apply to this, at all.)
Well, if Shiryuu wants to play flirty chicken with her, then she'll just do it right back!!
---NOW---
"<Hello>~"
Arranging herself on the bed, belly down, Umie cups her chin in upturned hands, her socked feet swinging in the air behind her as she has a stem of a red rose pressed between her lips. A few flowers are inserted hastily in the curve over one ear, while the towel folded in the shape of a dog is on top of her head, situated in place between those two buns.
Her index finger trails a lingering path through the petals as her eyes narrow mischeviously, twinkling eyes shining through lowered dark lashes.
Taking the rose out because she couldn't help but *talk*, Umie points the flower towards Shiryuu.
"I didn't think you had it in you, Shiryuu~"
Pause. "I see you've learned a thing or two from the Phantom Thieves of Hearts on how to steal one~"
The smile shows that Umie knows *exactly* what she's doing here, as her socked feet swing in lazy, alternating paths like she was a lovestruck schoolgirl on the phone with her crush.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
If there's one thing to be said, the boy is fast. It doesn't honestly take Ryouhara very long to get down the road and through the labyrinth of hallways and escalators to get to the room. Of course, there is likely at least a few complaints about a brightly colored delinquent in the halls as Ryouhara vaults over the railing of one set of stairs only to run up the opposite the entirely wrong way when a big guy was blocking his path, which forces him to go under an old lady's armbag and almost headbutt a ten year old and then..
Ah, luckily, he's also fast enough to evade capture, when the boy hooks a sharp right down the hall. "Confirmation page, confirmatioon page..." He trots down, his nose buried in his very, very red phone.
If it were an actual foot race, Shiryuu would have gotten there 3x faster than Umie rather easily. But having to set up the room on short notice, as well as get off work in the first place, Umie has a *very* comfortable lead on him.
With extra emphasis on the comfort, apparently.
But Ryouhara is aware of absolutely none of this, as he's not even paying attention to thec suspiciousc scent of vanilla that escaped and is now wafting down the hall, regarding it as a mere distraction as he finally confirms the room number and comes to a violent stop right in front of the door. "Whew." There, now relax, Shiryuu, you can't let her be aware that anything's out of the ordinary. The boy strips off his hat and smooths back his mop of hair, the grey pile rebelling almost immediately in objection to this treatment. Luckily, the neon yellow work cap is still good for something, and the boy jams the lid on his offended sprig decisively, feeling much more invincible than ten minutes ago. "Yeah," the shihaisha agrees with himself, eye glinting sharply in the light of the hall.
Akabane doesn't stand a chance against his logistics power--*chak* "...what?" *chak chak* The invincible Ryouhara jiggles the doorhandle, momentarily perplexed. "Why won't it.." he mutters to himself--
son of a
"This is absolutely not the vibe," Shiryuu complains to himself.
Of note, Ryouhara is *also* measurably faster than the reception desk. He is also faster than the concierge. He is faster than the staff, and literally anyone who could have given him an actual keycard to the door. Shiryuu sighs, sword-long. And rolls up his sleeve.
From Umie's perspective, she'll see the head of a very thin multi-sectioned blade skate under the door as the person on the other side kicks it through. A turn and a flick of the wrist, and the segmented blade snakes up the wall, a flick catching one of the sharp chevron-shaped sections on the door handle. A pull, and the lock clicks, letting Shiryuu in. He's still wearing eight layers of neon yellow work jacket and a cap, but one of his sleeves is rolled up, and the bangle on his wrist is unfurled.
Juurishojin is *supposed* to be a ranged attack ninkou. But Shiryuu isn't Nahara, and can't hack his way past an electronic lock with a cloning device, someone's credit card and some bubble gum. Similarly, retreat back to the front desk was unthinkable. And so, Shiryuu whips the blade around as he steps into the room smoothly, paying attention to avoiding chopping the room inadvertently as the blade yo-yos back into place with a whirl and a click. He is vaguely aware of Umie's silhouette on the bed in his peripheral vision, so she's safe from the advanced range of his attack while he rebinds the ninkou to an inactive state. Without his Persona, it'd be too dangerous to use Juurishojin's full length anyway...
"I really need to get better while using jutsu," Ryouhara thinks aloud as he looks up, "A claim against my deposit would be disastrous at this..."
Shiryuu looks up. And up. And up. And left. And right, and dow--
Umie is pointing a flower at him and her and the bed is -- "_uwoooh!!_" Ryouhara squawks in abject shock. His first instinct -- shut the door!! He kicks it shut with his boot. "A--Akabane!!!" Ryouhara howls with the abject panic of someone who is watching his carefully constructed text fall apart in front of him. "What did you do?? Why are there --! Are you trying to put the moves on us!? Uh -- on me -- on -- are you trying to lay siege to my station?! I'll fight you tooth and nail! N--not on the bed but -- over there!"
He's pointing at the washroom. "--wh! Not there."
His finger tracks. He points... at ...
Fight her on the table with the chocolates? NO
Fight her on the loveseat with a view of the city? ABSOLUTELY NOT
Shiryuu finally gives up, his fists jamming into his hips as he fixates with a fierceness on the wall art above Umie, trying his level best not to stare. This must have been the work of that dastardly concierge. He knew she was giggling for a reason. He knew it. The boy's face is a carefully disciplined and rendered mask, not betraying any emotion at all, lips tight, drawn sharp and flat.
He breathes again, short and just as sharp.
"Akabane, don't take that tone of sexy feet with me," Ryouhara points out severely, calmly locking the door again once he gets his bearings. Two tones of brown eyes fall on her. The grey-haired boy is trying his absolute best not to be amused. Nor stare.
He's visibly failing the second part.
"....what did you do to that poor towel."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
There'd be no contest. Umie is rather skilled, and is very fast, but Shiryuu trumps her in ability and experience.
However, circumstances were not on Shiryuu's favor, this time around.
*chak* *chak chak* Umie pauses in the middle of her posing to note the sound of Shiryuu's frustration with the door. She considers abandoning her premise to go over to unlock it, but something makes her wait.
That something is, of course, knowing a little about how a Shiryuu works. When there's a problem in front of him, he doesn't just give up, or use conventional, boring methods to solve a problem. If a door is locked... a Shiryuu Ryouhara would unlock it.
And an Umie Akabane is deeply interested in seeing just how he does.
If only Shiryuu could see the glint of interest in Umie's eyes as, after an appropriate amount of silence, something kicks through the bottom of the door. So... he intends to use something thin to get through the lock, but how is he going to make that blade... ah. So he manipulates it from the other side... even without a Persona... interesting. Oh, oh oh! So that's how he'll--
She almost forgets to move herself back into that (what she thinks will be) appropriately alluring position, even if the only thing that's bared is the gap between sock and leggings, or the upper parts of her hands.
Also, her face. That's the important part.
And she'll wait for Shiryuu to notice her, however long it'll take. It may be a while, given the very focused nature of his.
It's a quality of his she finds adorable.
What is also adorable is-- "I've never heard you make a sound like that before." She feels rather proud of herself, smugly posing on the bed as Shiryuu accuses her of 'putting the moves on us'. "So you had someone on the side? Oh, Shiryuu, you should have told me..." on him, he meant!! On his station. "So this is what a super secret Ryouhara compound looks like..." He'll fight her tooth and nail! "On the bed? Awahhhh~" That smile just grows ever more wolfish, as she feeds on Shiryuu's awkward gesturing, rolling languidly onto her back.
The washroom? "... Oh, I didn't know you were so eager~"
The table? "... We can feed each other the chocolate~"
On the loveseat with a view of the city? "We can cuddle and watch the city below~" Actually, that does sound kind of interesting, but ANYWAY.
That fierceness would be enough to make any person have second thoughts. Unfortunately, he's positioning it at the wall art above Umie's position, so she knows just what he's trying to accomplish.
She rolls back on her stomach, a hand held on the doggie-shaped towel atop her head to keep it in place.
Which, by the way, Shiryuu finally notices.
Pulling the doggie towel from atop her head with one hand, she holds it in front of the lower part of her face, moving its little ears. "They did a great job, don't you think?"
Pause. "I take it this wasn't your idea?"
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
What! Only a fool would dismiss his actions as awkward. Shiryuu's enmity is legend, and there's been entire command structures that have suffered under his brutal yoke in a single fit of pique.
The wrinkle is that Shiryuu can't decide which of her command structures needs to suffer under his brutal yoke. If any at all can suffer, as she seems to be perversely into every single grim fate. "Ugh," Ryouhara decides, in a single sound as is his wont. "Devils are apparently immune to brutality," he concludes in a puff of air.
"It explains your insatiable lust for zombies and sleeping in refuse," Shiryuu hammers on, completely unwilling to cede even an inch of ground to the bunned brute. Hands that were previously locked in megalomaniacal ranting claws now break pose, to point at Umie's deeply-pleased self as she rolls _all over_ the bed. "But don't think this means you win, Akabane!!"
Gh... "even implying I have someone on the side..." Will her depravities never end? "-- and why did you sound interested!!" Shiryuu is not letting a single bit of this go. As a matter of fact --
Shiryuu takes the box of chocolates off the table, having clocked with expert precision that they were in fact a box of chocolates, the clear branding aside. "These are sanctioned," Shiryuu informs her pointedly. "That means you can't have any." He's steadfast in this. "Absolute ban."
Ryouhara is stalwart in his tyranny.
But Shiryuu, it's already missing one. -- that's not important.
The boy glowers at the dog instead. "It's too cute," he grimly assesses.
So wound, there is no part of Shiryuu that is going to cooperate with any sentiment at all. He's trying not to stare. Instead, the boy shuts his eyes and breathes outward once, to recenter himself, before sliding his feet out of his boots (they are chronically unlaced, on closer inspection. He hates them, clearly) and padding across the room to the bed unceremoniously.
"The concierge must have sent a beast when I told her about you," Ryouhara decides, slipping out of his crime scene of a jacket and hanging it on the end of the bed. Now in a much more subtly colored form-fit black sweater, the boy abruptly sets about attacking the petals, sweeping them off aggressively onto the floor with his free hand, an arm folded over the box of chocolates. "I would have been much more thoughtful," he says, even as the petals stubbornly stick to wherever they please. Primarily his hands, and -- they're sticking to her too! "Who just gives any girl roses... even honeysuckle would be ..." sweep, sweep.
"Agh, move, you devil," Ryouhara complains briskly. Sweep, sweep. Her unrepentant lounging is keeping him from getting all the petals off the bed, by a whole half. By now his rainy scent has been thoroughly replaced with rose and vanilla, and he -- *ACHOO* -- .. again. ... snif ...
....sweep, sweep.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"Zombies?" Umie is momentairely flummoxed, then recalls. "I wasn't exactly enjoying myself there, you know." Pause. "It didn't stop you from escorting me across the city on your back. And the bath was great." She stretches out on the bed in memory, briefly closing her eyes. "It was so much fun."
In the end, she never thought badly of the hotel, because the people there were warm, the water was hot, and Shiryuu asked her. She was covered in zombie filth, haunted by what she saw in Sudou's cell, and unable to grasp the full totality of this glimpse behind the veil, or what it meant.
He *still* asked her to be his bond, with a gentleness and vulnerability that melted her.
Now, he has to pay the price: the impish thing that lays in that bed delights in his despair, rolling in it.
"If my bond is to go into this new era of his life, I should at least be open~" she purrs, her eyelids lowering until those eyes peek through narrow slits of depraved glee. "I should be supportive in your research in how bonds work..." She touches a finger to her lips, winking. "But I warn you, seeing you with someone else... I might get jealous." Her voice dips to a whisper. "Maybe I'll become like an onryo, and haunt you for the rest of your life~"
Perhaps even sooner, when Shiryuu picks up the chocolates. "Wh-hey!" Umie objects, finally giving Shiryuu the pleasure of breaking before he did. "You don't get to sanction those! Konbini chocolate doesn't compare to stuff like that!"
"What flower would *you* prefer, then?" She pauses mid-roll, a petal slowly unsticking from her hair. "It'd be savage to use a Mountain Snow Lotus. I'd refuse. Roses, though... there's so many petals."
Then, as if to punish Shiryuu for 'sanctioning' the chocolate, she rolls in the petals enough more, trying to collect them on herself before he sweeps all of them away.
When she's noticed he's taken off his crime scene of a jacket to reveal the form-fitting black sweater underneath, she slows, looking up at him from upsidedown, her cheeks slightly flushing pink.
No one would know, that someone who looked like this was underneath that jacket and those boots. "... Your guise was pretty effective, you know. No one would have suspected a thing, except for the people who'd know. Things like the silver hair, or your eyes, or the way you carry yourself, sometimes."
Like how he carries himself now, despite her attempts to break him: quiet and resolute, with an inherit dignity she feels she couldn't touch.
She's quiet now.
.... because the last petal, aside from the other ones that she's collected in her rolling and the ones likely wedged beneath some fold or another, is clutched between her teeth.
It does nothing to still the gremlin's cackling.
What will he do now?
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Hrmph," Ryouhara concedes wordlessly as he dusts with the back of his hand. None of that was a particularly pleasant time -- in truth, the whole matter caused the unfortunate loss of one of Shiryuu's favorite sets of shoes in a fire. They were limited time collaborations, even.
The tamer idea lets him keep his wits, a steel buttress against everything he's grown to associate with that man.
"..." He's quiet for a time, and the moment almost has a moment to cool before the boy cracks an eyelid. "T..then it's perfect, konbini-choco is fit for unrepentant villains!" Ryouhara fires back, as cavalier as he is authoritative, especially upon being subconsciously reminded of his lost sneakers. "I can sanction and censure as I please! This is the unlimited power of the shihaisha. This is justice!" As if to illustrate the point, Shiryuu points the box like an unsheathed sword at the gremlin rolling all over bed.
"..w..wait. What??" Shiryuu, with someone else? Getting haunted? "That's too occult!!" Ryouhara accuses. "Besides, what do I look like? I'm not some... Korozen!!" Who or what is that?
In fact, so offended is Shiryuu by the idea of some wild night and threesome that he almost doesn't notice when she's asking a serious question. That one eye opens wider. "... eh? Oh.."
he's still idly brushing petals off the bed, no thanks to her efforts in the slightest, and thoughts of flowers tempers him to the goal to eventually sleep on a rose free bed. "It's impersonal," Shiryuu finally explains, more calm than not. "Anyone can give someone a rose. Plenty of rogues have, right before breaking someone's heart. It just... rubs me the wrong way. That's all."
"I don't really know a lot about flowers," Shiryuu admits, looking up by the time both his eyes are actually open. "Just a few. Honeysuckle is for people born in April, I read. It's supposed to be because they're on a vine that climbs fearlessly towards the sun. Sometimes their berries are bitter, but their nectar is sweet."
No, Shiryuu doesn't actually know a lot about flowers. But...
"...for you, anyway, I'd pick red." He spies her, absolutely covered in petals like some kind of a madwoman. The boy in grey's expression gentles grudgingly, as he sits on the bed. It's a king size, obviously -- so Akabane could still roll away and make an escape easily without falling off.
Barring that, the boy will pick a few petals off of her randomly, flicking them to the floor. "At least the concierge got your color just right."
Well, the subterfuge is completely undone at this point, so there's really no point in hiding it. The grim, watery grin from the boy is offered, but only for an uneven flash, before his sober expression creeps back in.
"It's...fine," he supposes aloud. "I have to keep an eye on the work crews. They might find something they ought not, and the new construction plans are exacting." What's left unsaid is that Shiryuu is the one financing the reconstruction of the Harai in secret. "People have a habit of getting into trouble, if you don't watch them closely."
As if to prove the point, Shiryuu will make an attempt at plucking the teasing red petal from between Umie's teeth. She's upside down from his perspective, but he'll replace it by leaning down for a single, endeared kiss all the same.
"...you still can't have any choco," he whispers.
It's the only concession she gets out of him.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
'T..then it's perfect, konbini-choco is fit for unrepentant villains!' "Then that's why you should give the chocolate to me," Umie says, closing one eye as she rolls on her back once more, slowly bending up and crossing one leg over the other. "I'm the shihaisha of *my* story."
This is justice? ".... More like *your* justice." It *does* make Umie wonder what it's be like if Akechi, in his princely band major get-up, was in the same room as Shiryuu.
It'd be terrible, and she'd want to watch it all.
But also, what does shihaisha mean, anyway, in Shiryuu's context? "And what is a Korozen?" she adds onto her earlier statement, one eyebrow raised.
But the other question, which is more serious... while Umie didn't mean it in the context of her searching for specific answers, it *did* cause her heart to quicken, just a little, to hear how much thought Shiryuu gives to it. It slows her rolling to a slow flop onto her back, the blonde glancing over to Shiryuu and revealing the the pink tint to her cheeks.
Perhaps it's because her thoughts were previously on Akechi that Umie naturally moves to Ren's thoughts, and how he wanted to understand him. Is this what sort of feeling Ren meant, to see someone who thought so differently from you, and hear those parts of them that collect in your chest? To find your understanding of someone, in those small, tiny little parts of themselves...
Later, she'll reconsider just want sort of relationship those two have, but for now, her thoughts and eyes are on Shiryuu himself.
"..." For her, he'd choose red. She can't even lob something right at him; there's no bittersweet fruit close by, especially as Shiryuu diligently moves to pick a few petals off of her. ".... I'm sure there's red honeysuckle," she murmurs, quietly, her eyes and attention partitioned solely on Shiryuu's hands and that precious, fleeting smile.
"... It's a good color," she agrees. "It's a happy coincidence, to be sure." She sides with Shiryuu.
But there is one petal now, between her teeth; a last bid at impish frustration, to toe the line and play the part of Shiryuu's villain. Soft lips brush against his fingers, but otherwise, his fingertips are safe, her teeth even giving a little to allow the petal to extract easily.
Some people certainly do have a bad habit of getting into trouble, for all sorts of reasons.
She kisses Shiryuu back, readily, fully, despite it being a different angle that either of them are used to.
When the kiss breaks, The blonde's cheeks are flushed brilliant pink, her eyes half closed.
"... I will have that choco," she whispers back, persistent all the same.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Shiryuu is fairly pat on his vague and apparently ironclad sense of justice. He is fairly resolute as she introduces herself as the shihaisha of her own story, that it's 'his' sense of justice. Shiryuu glowers a little at that. Of course, the devil's justice would involve her getting at the choco he just censured, even declaring herself shihaisha....!
The grey-haired boy holds the box flat against the wool of his sweater. Closer to his waist, like one holds a textbook with both arms laced about it--it's to the extent that one may worry his body heat might melt it, were it not almost one hundred percent assured not a single degree of body heat is getting past his layers. Instead, the boy looks very, very skeptical of her bravura, blinking once as he looks at her.
"Keikyomodo," he replies flatly.
And just like that, he's labelled the self-anointed shihaisha and her entire train of thought as not just reckless, but double reckless.
Who's Korozen? Iehhh. It figures she would ask the hard questions. "He's nobody," Shiryuu insists. "He has three wives," he adds, almost as an annoyed afterthought.
He's almost as bad as O-Shinkun. This clan is filled with hussies.
"...n-nevermind. Just-- there should be," Ryouhara finally seemingly gets his mind off of harems and choco-guarding, considering instead the problem of matching an appropriate flower to Akabane, and whether red honeysuckle flowers even exist. The way the boy looks at it is very clearly a matter of important detail as opposed to a subjective romanticism -- brutal rationality, no matter how ostensibly poetic, drives the furrow in his grey brow. "According to my information, there's more than one. I'll get some personally, next time." Everything has a place, as he taps the edge of the chocolate box with pensive fingertips.
He promptly forgets he ever smiled at all.
As a result, it is with the utmost of grudgingly bemused affection that Shiryuu shares with her a single kiss; and herein is the moment Shiryuu finds her fondly, the tiny spark of concession-and-something-more leaving the boy in the embarrassingly neon yellow cap leaning back. A thumb and forefinger runs along the soft surface of the claimed petal, Shiryuu very plainly tempted to stay there in that moment with her, watching the blonde for a few seconds too long--
'I will have that choco.'
"Ah-huh," Shiryuu replies flatly, turning and padding away from the bed quietly at once. There's a little half a circle's worth of a leaf pattern along the small of his back, embroidered onto the sweater. Just aside the desk on the other side of the room he finds the armoire, and reaches up -- way up -- to slide the choco-box on top of it, until it settles behind the lip of the cabinet face with a tiny, final *paf*.
Therein is made a small, innocent point: Shiryuu is kinda tall.
He's also ruthless. The boy turns, to lean against the armoire and peer at Akabane, now subconsciously mimicking the gremlin by crossing his own legs. He's also folding his arms. "Well, that's a shame," he remarks, finally.
"I'm honor bound not to capitulate to bunned devils."
Yes, that's right. Shiryuu can be a troublemaker as well. No mercy.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Keikyomodo. Umie's legs kick just a little faster in amusement.
"Ahhh, don't say it so sweetly~" And like that, Umie has traded back Shiryuu's barb with one of her own, smiling oh-so-coyly on the bed.
Sometimes the fruit is bitter, but the nectar, so sweet. It climbs and stretches for the sun.
It comes adorned in red, like the fingernails that touch themselves to Umie's chin.
".... So Korozen is a nobody with three wives." Umie blinks. "... My, my. Could you even imagine, three of me around?" wait Umie why did you go to that
again, Umie, why did your logic follow in that direction
(Because she wants to see Shiryuu's reaction.)
Less so, when Shiryuu mentions getting some honeysuckle of some degree, be it petals or plants.
"Honeysuckle in November... You'd have to wait until spring." Where will they be, in spring? Will it be like this, several months away? Or will they regret letting it get this far?
Please, don't never let it be regret. To experience something like this, even if it turns out to be more fleeting than first imagined...
It makes these moments so much sweeter, even if the bittersweet bite is also there alongside it.
There is a reason the two of them have found each other, however, and that is the spark of Umie's rebeling against his hard stance of 'no choco'.
Shiryuu may be able to imagine the frustrated look as he walks away from that shared moment; perhaps he may find some satisfaction in how it's that, and not disappointment or fear that there won't be another.
This is just yet another bit of play between them, as well as a show of trust Umie holds in Shiryuu, as she slides off the bed to go stalk the waters around him and the armoire like a choco-thieving shark.
"It'd be a shame to ruin the armoire," she says, thoughtful fingers to her her chin, her eyelids lowered. It's a ploy to draw his attention from himself, with is the only proper ladder here that Umie could use without disturbing a single bit of the furniture here.
A hand gently trails against Shiryuu's shoulder, if he doesn't move. It's the only warning he gets before Umie does just that, attempting to climb on his back to reach the Forbidden Choco.
Her ambition does not match her actual ability, however, as this area is all mundane, no Personas allowed.
The ease and ability that Umie normally would have at hand is noticably more awkward, making a dramatic and even enticing ploy at chocolate stealing as embarrassing as the yellow hat he has on, instead.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
You can't be smug about being double reckless!! Unfortunately, Shiryuu knows almost immediately that's not the case, holding the chocolate box close suspiciously. The boy regards her with a certain imperiousness, hat tilted up to such a degree that a single strand of grey falls across his jawline.
Yes, she can, apparently. The shinobi is both endeared and unmoved by her cute display, his expression running soft right up until she brings up a truly cursed idea -- and really, the only reason Shiryuu doesn't have a full tilt crashout again is because he's expecting Umie to be difficult. The boy makes a face, and is already starting to protest.
"Iehh -- it's not like being triple married to you would be a challenge for me," Shiryuu fires back, holding the chocolate box a little tighter instinctively. "It doesn't matter how cute or how many, I'll defeat every Akabane, even if they all.... eh....mm.."
Shiryuu looks at Akabane kicking her legs pointedly.
'Ah-huh.' He makes sure to put extra authority on it when he says it.
Then he marches right off.
Putting the chocolates up was the simple part, and it is accompanied with the barest graze of pure satisfaction that she is not, in fact, winning. He is very vigilant, leaning with his back to the armoire while Umie stalks about making the world's least convincing show that she's not secretly plotting on climbing on the desk and getting at the chocolate box. The boy watches her closely, arms staying folded as she sizes up her problem.
He spares a single glance up to the armoire as she considers it, as she presses a hand into the plush weight of his sweater suggestively. And Ryouhara is still absolutely not impressed.
"Listen," Shiryuu reprimands her. "If you think kissing is going to take my mind off your attemPTS TO GET BEHIND ME AND CLIMB ON TOP?!"
Shiryuu is betrayed!! His attention drawn away from her for just long enough to notice her nailpolish, it's enough for the gremlin to hike a leg and try to climb him like a tree--!! "N--hey!!"
Shiryuu's skills are not at all rooted in the power of Persona, but the boy also does not regularly get climbed by people either. To his merit, he manages to get away from the armoire, and what proceeds is the most squabbling ever done in a room filled with rose petals everywhere. "You little -- double crossing -- stop trying to reach I can't carry you like this -- get your knee out of my -- agh don't make me -- AOMFPH!"
That's right, Shiryuu bites her.
Not hard. Not really. But he absolutely means business and it's hard to use his hands to subdue her when her everything is everywhere and -- 'mmfpg!' -- he objects, in short.
It's a last resort. Second to last resort, technically. The actual last resort is falling to the ground. Which Shiryuu also does. His hat goes flying. And rose petals fall off the table on them too. And probably more than a few of the ones Shiryuu more aggressively swept off the table.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
'Iehh -- it's not like being triple married to you would be a challenge for me.' "Oh? Really? Three of me would mean having to keep three of me satisfied."
Umie lets that fester there in Shiryuu's mind for the appropriate amount of time, before adding, "That's a lot of chocolate." Indeed, she knows *exactly* what she's doing, right there.
But alas, Shiryuu is her equal in that department as well, being a fellow Chariot. The chocolates are high up, and while she *could* climb up on the desk like a monkey, she knows the better route is right in front of her: Shiryuu himself.
Even if she no longer as the aid of her Persona in this space, certain body movements still come easy. Several years' worth of scaling up the back of many a tall, humanoid demon has ingrained certain tactics in the blonde's physical memory, and while this one lacks fins, scales, spikes, or a number of other attributes, she manipulates Shiryuu all the same, with the last minute alteration of reaching for those chocolates than to tighten a rope or wield a blade against her opponent's neck.
'AOMFPH!' She's been bitten before, by a demon, but never a human. It also throws her off, earning Shiryuu a squawk of surprise the two of them fall to the ground, the impact tossing petals all asunder.
In that stunned silence, red petals following about them, Umie looks down at Shiryuu with flushed cheeks and wide eyes. "H-hey..."
For all she knows, he may have taken a chunk out of her leg, and adrenaline is just letting her ignore it for a little while longer before the pain and humiliation set in.
Instead, it's the embarrassment of being on top of him, due to the logistics of how they landed: him on his back, and Umie, sitting on top of him.
The red petals contrast beautifully with his hair, she realizes, her eyes distracted by the pattern of how they fall, and how...
... happy she is that that damn hat is off him.
Her breathing beginning to slow, she looks down at him, her eyes tracing across his lips, his nose, his eyes, his hair.
"You really are a sight to behold sometimes, Shiryuu," she says, quietly.
Bending down far enough to let her nose brush Shiryuu's own, Umie's eyelids lower. "But the only way to deter someone like me is to offer me something sweeter than chocolate."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"Iih -- satisfying triple Erobuns! --" Shiryuu almost chokes on the idea, his brow furrowing instantly before hiding the chocolate far more aggressively than he prior intended. If he did prior, he doesn't feel bad at all anymore for telling her she couldn't have any choco. The absolute ban was truly the right decision. To think, she'd even go so far so as to--
'That's a lot of chocolate.'
Shiryuu stares at Umie suspiciously for a long time.
"You must have me mistaken for someone born a hundred years ago," Shiryuu glowers. "_Every_ Akabane," he repeats. Repeats, as the onmitsu folds his arms, her challenge causing him to dig in and set pike against the rancorous enemy's approach.
Yes, do not capitulate to bunned devils, Shiryuu.
This is probably also why she got bit.
The situation rapidly goes out of hand. Literally out of hand, as trying to fight Umie off when she's inside the critical distance would mean grabbing some or all of her, and Shiryuu is simply not going to give her the satisfaction. He has to find a better defense.
NOMF
"Nnnmfrghr!" [You can't get past three hundred years of refined ninjutsu!!] It turns out it's not really easy to argue with a mouthful of your girlfriend's leg. At least to his own merit, Shiryuu manages the freefall a bit better, corkscrewing on one heel to avoid landing _on_ Umie, and miraculously managing to get his teeth off of her before the impact causes his jaw to snap shut. After all, ninjutsu is not about maiming your opponent.
It's either complete assassination or nothing.
Tis does not mean that Shiryuu is not dazed by the impact, managing to land completely in the wrong way and having -most- of his soul knocked out when Akabane lands on, in, and possibly through his kidneys. Both of them? Does he still have them? Check under the bed. Wait--
Shiryuu is not going without a fight, immediately kicking his feet in the least effective fashion -- trying to dislodge Umie without moving her in a scandalous direction. That's really every direction at this point, so he gets nothing done. "Urgh, don't think you tasted like anything other than a terrible oni bagel, there's no way I'll be your hostage!!" Ryouhara struggles.
Again, he's trying to escape without touching her. So far, phasing through the carpet's not working.
"Wh--" What is she looking at. It's only when Shiryuu settles down some, out of breath and out of fight, that he finally pays attention. O--oh. Her eyes. "...Mmrh.." Shiryuu's expression flattens, lips parting slightly as his features gentle, as he slowly comes aware of the rose and vanilla scent wreathing her, the softness of her touch and the gentle weight pressing him down. All of a sudden, Shiryuu is simply not sure what to think.
"...wh?" He's suddenly snapped back into place. What did she say? Something...about...how he...
...oh...
"...I.." Shiryuu looks away with his eyes only, gaze retreating into his haphazard bangs. The line of his lips tuck into a tight, flat, reserved mien. Ugh, she's really... he begrudgingly admits it. "...guess you tasted okay..." He didn't mean the part about oni bagels, really.
His hands twitch at his sides, as the boy shifts very slightly into her, the slow, easy motion presaging the tension draining from his bones. The boy finally meets her face when she gets close, tilting his jawline just so to let her in. His dark eyes cant downward, absently checking to make sue she hasn't actually somehow stolen the choco up on the armoire still. It's not at all an excuse to make sure he puts his hands on her in just the right spots. His touch relaxes, and the boy's hands gentle.
'...offer me something sweeter than chocolate.'
"...mmmn," the boy consents wordlessly at first, a warm sound trickling along the lower depth of his throat, as his eyes flick back to her own, watching the way her dark lashes hood over them until some part of the back of his mind starts rebelling against his better nature. "I'll... figure something out," Shiryuu supposes.
She really is impossible..
Also, his back hurts. Why does he even pay for beds with this girl..
Shiryuu puts his mind off of it rather easily--his touch favors her fully, pulling her gently into his weight until she can feel where his heartbeat thunders and some part of her word becomes his when their lips meet.
Her kiss is definitely sweeter.
-- wait. Did she already have a chocolate??