265/Business Hours - Kyouka Inai

Business Hours - Kyouka Inai
Date of Scene:	19 August 2023
Location:	The Book Nook, Juuban Ward
Synopsis:	Tea and cookies in the fairy tale bookstore with a definitely-not-a-witch.
Cast of Characters:	Kiseru, Kyouka Inai
Tinyplot:	Midnight Tokyo

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Kiseru has posed:
    It's not the first time that the bookstore in Juuban Ward, at the plaza across from a locally-known cafe, has been here in Tokyo. It has been in other locations, and other cities, and other countries, and other continents as well, many times simultaneously, but right now, August 19th, in the year of our Godoka, 2023, it's here. Also here, coexisting with it, is another shop around back. It's the 'around back' that people who can't use or see magic or weirdness never find. They can't. Even for those on the functional side of the Veil, it takes the proprietess wanting a visitor for them to gain access. Otherwise, the door either doesn't open or leads somewhere other than it should.

    For now, however, both stores are open. The mundane one, out front, for the mundanians, and the other one, for people like Kyouka Inai. The door has a fantasy feel to it. An ornate, old-fashioned door frame, with an oak door within it, a uniquely shaped lantern hanging from a post over head, little fireflies hovering around the area in the darkness that exists regardless of time of day... Though at night, there's also fog. How all of this exists behind a store in a popular commercial part of Tokyo is not a question people like Kyouka are likely to ask. She knows why. Because this is magic.

    A stained glass window shaped like a pinwheel (or a spider's web) is inset in the door, and warm, yellow light shines through the windows on either side that are too smokey and opaque to see anything but vague shapes through.

    The smell of sweet incense is strong here. Even more so if the door is opened.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka had been to the cafe across the street. This much is evident from the paper cup of coffee she holds in one hand, steam still rising from the little aperture in the top one is supposed to drink from. She's wearing her street clothes, which is to say a black t-shirt with a 'Nemophila' band logo on it and a pair of blue jeans tucked into calf-high biker boots. And of course, her narrow rectangular-lensed sunglasses. She's also smoking a cigarette, because what goes better with coffee than a smoke? But as she meanders down the alley towards the door to the magical shop, she pauses to idly stub out the remainder of the smoke and drop it into a convenient trash can. You don't bring a lit cig into any store, but a bookstore least of all.

    Then she approaches the door, ash-grey eyes studying it for a moment without expression, before she opens it and steps inside, glancing around. Perhaps attempting to ascertain if anything has changed since the last time she's visited. It has been a while, after all.

Kiseru has posed:
    It's a cozy little store, like the wizard's or witch's cottage in the woods from a fairy tale, or the warm pub one steps into on a chilly London night, where people you know await you, and the waitress is already going back to tell the chef your order because she knows you so well. Or maybe the mysterious shop of a merchant in the back alley of a traditional town in the Middle-East, where cool air and incense awaits after going through the beaded curtain, and there are Wonders hidden away among the seemingly mundane baubles and relics on display.

    It is, in some ways, whatever people expect it to be in their imagination and dreams. Not that they can dictate its form, but it reflects that excited part of someone's heart, that became enraptured by stories of detectives solving mysteries, or exploring an island for a pirate's treasure, or delving into the deep sea to find sunken ships and their lost cargo.

    This is by design. The smoke that drifts around helps, emboldening the imagination. But there's also just plain magic at work here. And not the dark kind.

    Things are different, unless they are expected to be otherwise. But at least the merchandise is different. It gets swapped out, sold off, or whatever on a fairly regular basis. There's still a waiting area off to the side with seating and hot tea and fresh cookies sitting on a large tray if one needs a moment to sit and catch their breath or take stock of their senses or ponder over a purchase, but the counter, the glass displays both standing and in-set to wooden shelves, and most everything else is rearranged, moved, and reconfigured.

    The one thing that is utterly and completely unchanged is the woman behind the counter, lounging on a stool, with her namesake pipe between her lips, and some sort of old book spread out in front of her. She is as beautiful as ever, as exotic-looking, in the same type of fine traditional Chinese dress, with her hair up in a bun held there with chopsticks.

    Smokey gray eyes match the smoke that emerges when she looks up and opens her mouth to address Kyouka. It blows out while she speaks, giving her a somewhat draconic aesthetic.

    "Sheriff." the Kiseru Lady says in acknowledgement.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Smoke is unlikely to bother Kyouka, given that she was smoking a cigarette on her way down the alley, but it is a bit much in here. She idly waves her free hand, the one not holding a coffee, in front of her face as if to clear some of it, for all the good that will do. She knows it won't do any good- it's more just an automatic reaction. The fact that the place looks the same, yet also different, doesn't phase her either- it's not her first rodeo, and this is likely something along the lines of what she expected. Even if what she expected was 'the unexpected', at least in terms of the interior of the shop itself.

    She's not really interested in the merchandise anyway. Never was, not the type. But she knows that this shopkeeper knows things, and is willing to part with said knowledge if the price is right. She might not be able to afford it- but then again, you never know unless you try, do you? And she's a pretty good haggler.

    As she's addressed, she reaches up and pulls the sunglasses from her face, folding them one-handed before hanging them on the neck of her t-shirt. "Actually it's 'Arbiter', she corrects the woman, with a lopsided smile that shows one slightly-too-sharp canine tooth. "Sheriff is an elected position, and nobody in their right mind would vote for me."

    She approaches the counter slowly. Not warily, just not in a hurry, raising her coffee to take a sip and then grimacing as it's still too hot. Once she arrives, she gives the woman on the other side a casual glance up and down. "Classy as ever. Been a while since I've seen you in this part of the world. How's the market in Bangaledesh, or wherever you've been hangin' out recently?"

Kiseru has posed:
    Kiseru closes up the book she was reading, not to hide it, but just because it would be rude while there's a customer or visitor. It would make it seem as though they are interrupting something she would rather get back to. It's an unremarkable looking black leather-bound book with frayed edges, and faded golden (colored) writing on the cover that says, 'Clow Reed: Man Or Myth?'

    With a smile she breathes out the rest of her incense-smoke away from Kyouka, somehow managed to blow a heart with an arrow through it, before knocking out the ashes and contents of her pipe and then laying it to rest on its bland but intricately carved cradle. With that out of the way, she turns fully to face her return customer and leans on her elbows on the counter with her pretty smile on her unaging, unchanging face. Hard to say how old she is, really. Perhaps similarly to other Veterans like herself and Kyouka.

    In answer, she says, "The market for dragon teeth crashed. Fae gold is up, for some reason. But there's a market I'm more interested in presently, and this seems like the place to be to partake of it." She tilts her head. "And you, Arbiter?" She looks Kyouka up and down. "I see that time has treated you well."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Yeah, everybody seems interested in Tokyo these days." Kyouka heaves a small sigh, resting a hand on the counter and tapping it with a forefinger, a restless gesture without meaning. "And Kyouka-san is fine. I've never been pretentious enough to care about titles." This much is true. She isn't sure how old the other woman is, but considering she was already running this shop when Kyouka was an active magical girl (IE, a young teenager), the assumption is she is likely the older of the two. Yet they now appear of a similar age, which perhaps is why Kyouka feels comfortable speaking to her casually.

    "Things are interesting around here the last couple of years, and that's an understatement. Got a sniff your shop was back in the neighborhood," A demonstrative wrinkle of the nose, "And thought maybe I'd pay a visit in case you'd heard anything I might be interested in. There's a few tales I'm chasing, these days. Part of the new gig, y'know."

    "Might be you haven't been back in town long enough to know anything I don't. But even if that's the case, if you hear anything later.. I'm willing to pay. If the intel is good."

Kiseru has posed:
    The lady does not change her smile except to quirk one corner of it up a bit. "Ah. A business visit then." She opens a little swinging door on her side of the counter, and practically glides over to the waiting area, where she gestures at the various seating options. Recliners, rocking chairs, couches, whatever. Is that a hammock? Was that even there originally? Yes, yes, magic. It's still really smooth how things just seem to change as-needed. Whether Kyouka accepts or not, the Kiseru Lady seats herself on a stool with two legs that she somehow balances on without so much as tilting it, as she crosses one leg over the other.
    "Tell me then, Kyouka-san," she begins calmly. "How may I help? What do you wish to know? If I do not know the answer, I have ways of finding out many things. And there is no charge if I can't. My time is only worth something if it achieves something worthwhile."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka quirks her lips to one side in an expression of vague amusement as she watches the woman move to the seating area and perch herself on that stool. She has, of course, been around the block a few times and so the parlor tricks don't do much to impress her on a surface level- though, on the flip side, she has enough experience to know what sort of magical experience and investment it takes to make things like this shop function, and she has respect for that. So in that way the displays are still worth it, if perhaps in a different way to the average customer.

    Kyouka follows after a moment, finding a rather normal, if comfortable, looking couch and sitting down on it. She likewise crosses one leg over the other, stretching her free arm out along the back of the couch, the other cradling her coffee in her lap as she turns slightly, leaning back into the arm of the couch, getting comfortable.

    "I need to know about Obsidian Corp." She says, simply. "I mean, look.. I know the basics. Powerful corporation, and a front for Dark Energy users. But for me it's always been kinda a 'live and let live' situation. Y'know, I'm sure they do tons of shady shit, but as long as they aren't mass murdering people or trying to blow up the city, it ain't really my problem, right?"

    She quirks a brow. "Thing is, I've heard some rumors lately that maybe they have some new projects which are going to become my problem, directly or indirectly, sooner or later. And I'm trying to get out ahead of it. If I can."

Kiseru has posed:
    Kiseru listens calmly and attentively. Once Kyouka finishes, she lets out an, 'Aaah' of understanding. Then she says airily, "Yes, I'm familiar with them. I do not speak of other customers, or even whether or not they are even a customer of mine, but you could say that I have had... Interactions." She raises a hand and one of those 'Black Jades' that has been selling out like crazy is sitting atop her palm. It's a black orb. Not much to look at. But it's apparently popular.

    "There was that promotional campaign last month, I hear... It may not have gone quite as intended though, if the news media is to be believed." She holds up the sphere to examine it. "An item bartered. One of five-hundred." She sets it in her lap. "But there are many factions within a corporation... Humans band together and divide themselves in every situation. It's how they are. So it may be only a segment of the company that is actively causing trouble."

    She taps her finger on the sphere. "To find out more, I will need some specifics. At least a general idea of what information you are hoping to acquire."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka glances at the Black Jade. If she feels threatened by it, there's no indication, but her regard is stony. "Yeah, I heard about that. Couple students of mine got caught up in it. Still, I think that situation is largely... resolved." She doesn't know that for a fact, but it seems likely... and it's not her primary concern, anyway.

    She leans forward slightly. "I need to know about something called 'The Midnight Tokyo Project'. I don't know anything about it except the name, and that I have reason to believe it is exceptionally dangerous. And that it is something that is being worked on at Obsidian." She leans back again, sipping from her coffee, which has now cooled enough to allow her to do so without damage.

    "My source was... reliable, but unable to produce much more than the name, and a corroborating bit of evidence which leads me to believe it is Bad News. My contacts within Obsidian have all reacted... poorly to my mentioning it, which makes me even more sure that I want to know what it is. Sooner rather than later. Well, before it's complete, anyway."

Kiseru has posed:
    "Hmmm... Yes." is Kiseru's simple agreement. "That does not sound as though remaining in Tokyo will be healthy if it goes through." She puts the Black Jade aside, and pulls open a little red book. She thumbs through the pages in the middle, until she finds whatever she's looking for. "I know someone on the inside, so to speak. And they owe me a Favor." Her smile curls and spreads as her gray eyes come up to meet Kyouka's. "I will have information for you within the week, if not sooner." She then pulls out a feather-quill pen from somewhere, and flips to another page, and jotting something down. "Kyouka-san... Information request... Delivery date, one week or less." She smiles and then snaps the book shut.

    "The request has been made. I will see to it that it is acted upon this very night." She tilts her head a bit and gestures at the tray of cookies. "Anything else I can do for you? Yay or nay, you can take some baked goods if you desire. Free of charge."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka quirks a brow slightly, then warns, "I know people on the inside too. Several, in fact. And I haven't been able to get much. Seems like this is a pretty high-up thing, at least for now. I'm not saying I don't think you can do it, I'm just saying- this might be a harder nut to crack than you give it credit for. And if you decide it's not worth your time," a brief shrug. "Well, I guess that's just business."

    She shakes her head slightly, though she does reach for a convenient muffin to take with her. "That's it, really. Like I said.. I'll pay for anything of substance. Anything I don't already know, but I just told you everything I know, more or less, so probably anything you do find out will be new to me. Just... don't underestimate this. I think it might be a big deal, and security is likely to be tight." She turns, pulling her sunglasses from her shirt and slipping them back over her eyes. "Here." She pulls a business card from her pocket. It has the RHA logo embossed on it, with her name, position, and phone number written overtop. "This is where you can get in contact, these days. If you find anything."

    Heading back towards the door, she glances over her shoulder, and smiles. "Nice to see you back in town." Then she's gone, out the door.