938/Affirmations of Attitude

Affirmations of Attitude
Date of Scene:	29 December 2023
Location:	Okujoo Ramen
Synopsis:	Kyouka gets together with Mamoru post-Soryuu Shrine to catchup and exchange New Year's gifts.
Cast of Characters:	Kyouka Inai, Mamoru Chiba

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Kyouka Inai has posed:
    After the kerfuffle at Soryuu Shrine, Mamoru and Usagi had gone off-grid for a while. Kyouka didn't know exactly where or how, but she knew this was part of the plan and she wasn't particularly worried. She did send them both texts, however, asking them to let her know when they were back 'in town', so to speak.

    Presumably that text was eventually answered, at which point Kyouka asked to meet up and catch up on events when it was convenient. Apparently, the current time is when it was convenient, and the convenient place is the ramen shop. Because there's never a bad excuse for ramen.

    Kyouka enters the shop carrying a large but nondescript shopping bag, otherwise looking like her usual self, sunglasses included. She finds a table in the enclosed half of the restaurant, because while winter in Tokyo seldom gets cold my some standards, its chilly enough that eating outside seems needlessly uncomfortable. She places an order for tea, two cups, then proceeds to wait, not even looking particularly impatient.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Ding! The elevator lets out Mamoru Chiba, comfortable in a dad-coat (literally) over jeans, a t-shirt, dress shoes, and an open button down, visible once he takes the coat off and slings it over the back of his chair. He's had a haircut, and he's wearing his glasses, and he has a small bag which he puts on the table with a grin. He pushes it toward Kyouka as he sits down.

"Hey. Happy New Year a couple of days early," he says, gesturing at the little bag. When she looks in, it's got six sticks of rock candy -- dark green, light green, pink, light blue, dark grey, and light red -- and a couple of purification-flavored Silver Crystal lollipops.

"Sorry about the stunt I pulled at the shrine. Thanks for coming to help me defend it."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka flashes a lopsided smile to Mamoru when he arrives and sits down in the chair opposite her. She quirks a brow at the bag, peeking into it and then snorting in amusement. "Hey, don't worry about it." She says with an easy shrug. "It's not like doing what I did compromised the mission, and I didn't want Himeko-chan to... be destroyed either. For your sake or hers. I'm glad it all worked out into the end."

    Placing the bag beside her on the table, she reaches down and picks up the larger bag which had been on the floor by her feet. She hands it over to him. "This is for you. Consider it a... New Year's, Christmas, 'graduation', 'congrats on the new job' present.. whatever floats your boat. Pick your occasion, but there's plenty to celebrate."

    Inside is a leather jacket! Not like hers- hers is a biker jacket. This jacket is more like a casual dress leather jacket, nice without being fancy. It's clearly not expensive as these things go, but nor would it have been cheap. It's nice without being extravagant. It is black, and would be slightly longer than waist length.

    "I figured you needed something to replace that awful green thing." She says, with a smirk. "Though I see you've gotten a stand-in already." A nod to the 'dad coat'.

    Gift-giving accomplished, she says, "Have things been going reasonably well since then? I figure they must be, or I would have heard otherwise before now."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Roughly blazer length. It really is a replacement. Mamoru holds it up and just looks at it, and when he looks back at Kyouka, his eyes shine. "Thank you--" he starts, and closes his eyes and ducks his head, smiling. "Thank you so much, it means-- a lot. Thank you."

In fact, he stands up and pulls it on, and it goes with the band shirt and jeans look a lot better than the dad coat does. When he sits down, he experimentally bends his elbows, and it doesn't pull too tight, and the sleeves don't ride up, and he's so pleased. He is so very pleased.

He laughs a little sheepishly. "I needed a coat, last year's didn't fit anymore... and so Usa gave me one of her father's coats. This is..." New. Just for me. New for me. As a gift. Things he doesn't say, but they're on his face for Kyouka to see.

It's a little bit of a relief when Kyouka changes the subject, and Mamoru picks up the tea she ordered for him and sips it while she speaks. "We got the other guys out, one by one. Two of them couldn't come without a fight. Zoi actually helped us, he had a plan and everything. I'd've had a convenient time earlier, but there's been stuff. Exactly one half of my room with Koji got flooded completely sodden. I mean, my half. All the way up. So I've been dealing with that too-- but it's little stuff."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka looks pleased too, to see that Mamoru is pleased. She can't afford to give gifts like that to everybody, but she figures that helping somebody turn their life around, literally, is a cause for a special celebration. "I had to guess on the size, so I'm glad to see that my instincts were on point." She says, mildly smug.

    She nods her head in acknowledgement of the change of subject, and the fact that the other guys were rescued is met with another nod and a smile. "Good. I'm glad. Not about the fighting, but about the fact that you were able to get them at all. I know it meant a lot to you to get them out along with yourself. Not perfect, but far from a failure. Hard to ask for more than that going into the new year."

    She quirks a brow at the mention of the flooded dorm room. "How do you flood exactly half of a room all the way up? I suppose it doesn't really matter... comparatively small disasters are almost a relief."

    She signals the waitress, and places her order for a bowl of tonkatsu ramen. "Usagi-chan doing okay, too?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
For lack of creativity on the spot, Mamoru orders the same, then crooks up half a smile and nods, waiting for the waitress to leave before answering the first question. "How? Magic. I have to assume it was a targeted and extraordinarily stylishly petty attack. There was a line down the center of the room and the carpet squished and the mattress was too heavy to move. I stayed with Kazuo for a couple of days while the janitorial staff helped me replace it and clean up. The disaster's small but it's an 'I know where you live' message."

He has some more of his tea, then... grins. "Usa's hair won't stop growing really fast. It's getting like... four feet longer per day. She keeps having to hack it off. But other than that," he gets a little more serious, "she's going okay, except for the whole... we got a lot of memory dumped on us at once. Memory of being different people. It's messy. I think she's having a little trouble reconciling, if that makes any sense? But again, it's not a big disaster, just one more thing for her to have to deal with."

A pause, and Mamoru abruptly looks horrified. "Please for the love of god don't spread this shit around. Inai-sensei-- please. The stuff about Usako."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka makes a noncommittal 'mmm' sound at the mention of a 'targeted attack' being the cause for the dorm room flooding. "Any idea who did it?" Not that she would be so petty as to seek revenge on his behalf or anything but sometimes it pays to know who your enemies are- or the enemies of your friends. "Thankfully Kazuo-kun is as reliable as always."

    The food is delivered in fairly short order, and Kyouka digs in, slurping up noodles expertly with her chopsticks while listening to the report on Usagi's hair. "That's.. unfortunate. What is it about being a reincarnated princess makes your hair grow uncontrollably?" She grows a bit more solemn at the mention of having memories of being different people dumped on you, and she says with surprising sympathy, "It's a lot. I get that. Believe me when I say I know a little bit about how you feel. It's hard to think that you, or at least some part of you, doesn't really belong to yourself? At least until you can reconcile that other person with who you are now, and come to terms with the fact that both are you. Even if different versions of you."

    She gives him a look at the pleading request. "Of course not. What do you take me for, some kind of gossip?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Yes!" answers Mamoru with a disbelieving little laugh. "Kind of! I mean you have a really tough time keeping secrets sometimes. But-- so-- thank you." He finishes his tea to drown his embarrassment, face nonetheless a little red. Such a fantastic gift, and a heartfelt conversation, and-- he knows better than to admit stuff to Kyouka Inai but here we are again.

"There are only so many people who have it out for me, and they're all at Obsidian, and only some of them know who I am at home. I have to assume it's a member of Beryl's remaining staff. Maybe on her orders, except I'd think she'd try to get me back instead of just... getting back at me."

There's only a little bit of poking at his ramen while it's still so hot; Mamoru will dig in in a minute. In the meantime he says, "I think maybe I'm having less of a tough time than Usa is. I liked being Endymion a lot more than I liked being Mamoru-- and a hell of a lot more than I liked being Darien. I'm just not sure how much of me is really me, which is silly. Because obviously the answer is all of me, there's no stranger in my head."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka looks scandalized. "I am perfectly good at keeping secrets, despite what you and everyone else says." Perhaps the fact that 'everyone else' also says it is indication that she may be in a bit of denial. "I just refuse to let someone's desire for something to be secret compromise the safety of others, that's all." More like she decides what's worth keeping secret and what's more useful spreading around. Luckily, Usagi's difficulties in adjusting to being a reborn princess are unlikely to have any strategic value to leverage and therefore are most likely safe. Plus Mamoru asked nicely.

    "It does seem like a rather petty prank for someone from Obsidian to play on you for defecting. I'd expect something more... serious. Still, if you find out who did it, let me know. Always pays to know who has it out for you in particular." She repeats, with the confidence of someone who has had a lot of people out for her in particular over the years.

    She makes another noncommittal 'mmm' sound when Mamoru talks about Usagi having a harder time adjusting. "She had a hard time adjusting to being Sailor Moon, too, but once she got her feet under her she fit into the role perfectly. I think she'll probably do the same here. It might help to think of it the same way you think of growing up... was five year old you, or ten year old you, very similar to current-you? In some ways yes, in other ways, not at all. But they were still you. Who you were isn't who you are, but the impression of them remains."

    She chuckles. "Just for most of us it doesn't result in uncontrollably growing hair."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's absolutely a dubious look at Kyouka's defensiveness, but Mamoru doesn't say anything more about it. He definitely digs in to his ramen, though, managing to eat it without slurping mostly. Mostly.

"I'll let you know," he says about the 'prank' that required him to replace half of his electronics and definitely ruined the last of his absurdly expensive suits and got water in a very important cardboard box of papers.

Then, "That's true," he says, visibly relaxing when Kyouka puts Usagi's problem that way.

A beat. "For what it's worth, I still a thousand percent have the urge to be combative and cleverly insulting with you, but I'm also still seriously off-balance. So if you want me to work on trying to keep that out of rebuilding myself, now's probably the time to say so."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Slurping ramen is a time-honored tradition in Japan. It suits Mamoru to not slurp. But Kyouka definitely slurps, and unashamedly so. The ramen is good- that, at least, is impossible to deny.

    She smirks a little bit, pointing at Mamoru with her chopsticks, which for the record, is considered extremely uncouth and Not Done. "Well I'm glad it's not just me then. I don't think I'd know how to behave around you if you weren't combative and cleverly insulting. Just as long as you recognize that I actually am trying to help you. I can take cleverly insulting... in fact, I'd say I downright appreciate it. As long as its affectionate."

    She heaves a little sigh. "I've always had more enemies than friends. I realize I'm not an easy person to get along with. But I don't requires or ask for politeness and decorum out of my friends. And hope that they can accept the same."

    She gives a bit of a lopsided grin. "It's like my mom always said- your real friends are the ones who don't try to hide how much you annoy them." Probably explains a bit about her and Fuyuko's relationship then, doesn't it.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's-- that's a really big grin. "Good, I'm glad we're friends. And hopefully, you don't have to get to know me all over again. I'm not gonna say I'm going to be as annoying as I was, but I hope I can still make you want to lose your mind sometimes." And then it softens into that affectionate look he even got as Darien sometimes. "And I never meant any of the really mean stuff. You just have really easy-to-push buttons. Which is funny."

He doesn't mind the rudeness -- he didn't then, he doesn't now, and, "So is how uncultured and rude you are. How do they make you follow the faculty dress code? What kind of leverage do they have on you?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "I have a feeling that won't be too much of a challenge." Kyouka says wryly, to the concept of Mamoru making her want to lose her mind sometimes. "The thing you need to realize is like you said.. Darien was a part of you. Is still a part of you. Maybe not the best part, but Dark Energy doesn't invent a new you. It amplifies your worst traits. Those traits still exist.. just hopefully now they exist in moderation, like they're supposed to." She smirks. "I liked you as Darien remember. There's pretty much no way I don't like you more now that you're not having your worst traits hopped up by outside influences."

    She makes a face. "I know, I'm easy to rile up. It's one of my worst traits. But I'll forgive you the mean stuff if you forgive me the occasional lack of patience."

    As for the dress code, she rolls her eyes. "Because I need to pay rent. And actually I look pretty baller in formal duds, don't you think? It's a paint in the ass, all those buttons and like, pressing the slacks and stuff. But I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it made me look like a grown-up."

    Because here's the secret- she's only 23. She might be a 'grown up' compared to the students, but in her mind she's still an orphan street-rat fighting delinquents in alleyways and stealing dinner from the conbenie.

'Mamoru Chiba has posed:
She is only 23. And like Mamoru said to Usagi at some point -- 23 isn't grown up, it's just old enough to be a bigger pain in the ass and think you know everything. He probably phrased it differently.

"I will forgive all the lack of patience eventually," he says, crooked smile firmly in place. "Eventually. I might be sore at the time. But yeah! The grown-up clothes do make you look all professional and whatever. It's funny how much appearances affect interactions. It's like a set of signals. And gods my ramen is getting cold, what's wrong with me--"

It's finally time for slurping, apparently.