1397/Forgiveness over Lunch

Forgiveness over Lunch
Date of Scene:	10 April 2024
Location:	Classroom
Synopsis:	In the aftermath of prom, Hitomi asks Katsumi to lunch and learns that forgiveness only costs a lunch.
Cast of Characters:	Katsumi Cora, Hitomi Kobe
Tinyplot:	Prince and Princess Prom

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Katsumi Cora has posed:
It's been a few days since prom, and there's still that buzz about things that happened and all the fun and music and fireworks and food. But there's also... well...

In class 9-D, Katsumi asked for a new seating assignment. Now sitting close to the door, the blind student has kept to himself since classes restarted, and tolerated the ribbing he's gotten about joining the judo club, or being offered classes at a local dojo.

With class coming to a close, Katsumi is entering into his usual retreat over the last couple of days - after getting his assignments, he's putting away his books to rise from his seat. "Come on Kobo."

Kobo, on the other hand, has been depressed, being away from sitting near Hitomi, he tugs on Katsumi's hand to try to guide him back to her, but Katsumi isn't having it. "Not today." he says quietly. "Not yet." Perhaps not ever.

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    And when Hitomi caught wind of her classmates teasing Katsumi, she would ask them very politely to stop. He didn't deserve to be made fun of. She could take it.

    She had kept her hair in a low ponytail that day, a few bits of it straying into her face as she kept stealing looks over to Katsumi and Kobo, and finally she gets up the guts.

    Her footsteps are loud and purposefull as she rushes to catch up to Katsumi.

    "Cora-san --" she calls out, "Could we... could we talk? Will you give me a chance to apologize?" she asks, coming up close but *not* touching him.

    "Please?"

Katsumi Cora has posed:
There's a subtle stiffening of his body as Katsumi hears the footfalls, expecting someone else to give him a hard time. What he did not expect was for Kobo to stop and turn to Hitomi, happy to see the girl.

Katsumi, on the other hand, turns to face her, noticing that she's not touching, and that's fine as he draws in a breath. He's not ready for this. But... here we are.

"It wasn't your fault, Kobe-san." he says quietly. "It was mine. I made you uncomfortable. You reacted as you saw fit. I deserved it. I should be the one apologizing." he offers to her with a small frown. "I deserve everything I got."

"I'm sorry for being too personal with you and holding you against your will."

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    "No. It was my fault." Hitomi states plainly. "You didn't deserve what I did. I could have pulled away. Or asked to talk. Or explained why I got scared. Instead I threw you and left you in the middle of the dance floor, disorientated, without direction."

    She stiffens up, and rubs the back of her head. "If I had the choice, I would have danced with you all night. But... there's... difficulties." she finally stammers out, and becomes keenly aware some of their classmates are watching.

    "What I did was unforgivable and cruel, and it's... not like me." she states softly. "Could I... could I treat you to lunch? Or after-school?"

Katsumi Cora has posed:
"Silvia-san helped me to my feet. And Nurse-chan says I'm okay, just a couple of bruises. Nothing to worry about." And Katsumi is willing to let it go at that, but clearly, there's something else that there is something else that is needed to discussed here. "Lunch is fine. We can talk there." he agrees, being carefully guarded. "Kobo, lunch."

And with that. the dog moves to lead Katsumi towards the cafeteria, waiting only for a moment to see if Hitomi follows.

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    Hitomi does follow behind. She doesn't blame Katsumi for not wanting to go off-campus with her.

    She's quiet, walking a bit behind the handler and dog so that it was obvious they were walking together.

    "Here -- there's an empty table this way --" she states, turning to the side, and giving a soft 'Over here, Cora!' with the scraping of a chair. "I uh... I brought lunch today. I have enough to share if you want some."

Katsumi Cora has posed:
Following after Hitomi after they switch positions on the way to the cafeteria, Kitsumi clearly probably misunderstood what it was that Hitomi was asking and keeping himself kinda shielded. When she scrapes the chair and calls over to him, he offers a slight smile. "Thank you, Kobe-san."

A pat on the seat of the chair and he moves to settle in as she offers to share her lunch. "Oh. Sure. I can go get a plate if it's a bother, though!" he offers quickly.

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    "It's no bother. I'll use the top of my bento." she explains, and gives a smile.

    There's the sound of food being transferred, and the scrape of a cheap plastic bento box being pushed forward. It smells oily and spicy. Probably fried foods, with the tang of pickled vegetables.

    "There's tempura at noon, three o'clock has the rice, and six o'clock has some pickled radishes and cabbage strips." she explains, and a set of chopsticks presses against Katsumi's hand.

    "... so... to um... to kind of explain..." she begins, "My family back home used to be the /best/ food stand people. My mom comes from a family that did baking, and my grandmother even studied in France to be a pastry chef. My dad's family? All loud, street cart, Osaka people. And we're proud of that. You can't run a street cart and be not-friendly, you know? Unless people are into that I guess..."

Katsumi Cora has posed:
After she lays out the food and explains where it is, Katsumi accepts the chopsticks and sets up with a little bit of a practiced move, listening to her story. "I tried some of the food after... well." a shrug of his shoulder. "It was really good. Your family should be proud." he offers in response.

He doesn't see what that has to do with things, but she's talking, and he's okay with listening for now as he tries some of the mixed pickled vegetables.

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    "We are. We all are." Hitomi replies quietly, and she pushes her food around. The table shifts, she might have put her elbow on it.

    "... we were the top vendors in Osaka for a long time. Almost three generations! ... but something happened. People began to complain about our food -- saying the quality was bad, or it was making people sick. I found out who was doing it -- it was.... he was a family friend. I confronted him... and bad stuff happened." she explains.

    "And he got away. I think he's hiding in the area... and that's kind of... why I came here, you know? To find him. To get revenge for my family's business and honor. I thought that would make me happy."

Katsumi Cora has posed:
"What? Someone was sabotaging your food stands? That's terrible!" Katsumi admits, worry in those knitted brows behind his glasses, as he shakes his head. "Why would someone do that? How could someone..." A sigh as he stops eating for the moment.

And then she explains why she's here at the school. "Okay. Did you find him?" he asks, "And when you get your revenge... are you leaving the school? Did you not plan to be here for long, then?"

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    "...er... well. I was kind of involved in... a minor... explosion... and was asked to not come back to my highschool." Hitomi admits, and she frowns. "So my parents agreed to send me here, so I can graduate on time." she explains quietly, and then there's a 'thump'. Her voice comes from table-height, her head might be down.

    "And I haven't found him yet. But dancing at prom with you? It made me happy. And I feel like I don't have the right to be happy yet because my family's honor is still messed up. And I got scared that if you liked me and found out what I was all about, that I'm just a greasy nobody from Osaka who accidentallied an explosion, you might not like me anymore."

Katsumi Cora has posed:
When her head thumps against the table, Katsumi reaches out across the table... and finding her head, lightly strokes her ponytail. Only a couple of times, as he finishes listening to her explanation. "So that's why you threw me?" he asks as he withdraws his hands. "I'm not all that special myself. My dad's a professional baseball player. He went to America to chase his dreams, met my mom, had me. I was supposed to be some great baseball player myself, until a line drive took away my sight." he shrugs.

"It messed things up. My dad fell into a funk. My mom tried hard to accept it. But then it got worse. My dad's career hit a slump at the same time my mom's career took off... well. Me and my dad are here. My mom's still in America."

"The point is, I'm not all that special, and definetly not special enough to turn down a friend. Much less give her reason to throw me." A small smile at that.

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    "EXACTLY. You didn't deserve to be judo-thrown and left in the middle of the dance floor in the dark, Katsumi! And I get that I don't deserve forgiveness. That was cruel. I was just so scared that I... wouldn't be enough to deserve being asked to Prom."

    Meanwhile, Panko has slipped out of Hitomi's blazer pocket, and hopped down to a knee, the little fluff with dark eyes staring at Kobo.

Katsumi Cora has posed:
"I already said I forgave you though." Katsumi responds, hands settling on the table, a sigh. "Though you probably didn't hear me at the time. So I'll say it again. I forgive you, Kobe-san. As I said, I shouldn't have gotten so greedy to want a slow dance with you. I deserved it."

Kobo, in the meantime has noticed the squirrel and comes a little closer, bumping agaisnt Hitomi's leg, to likewise try to comfort the girl.

"I'll be fine. People will eventually forget, and soon enough, there will be the whole 'hey, you remember that one year some kid got judo-flipped at school?'. And people will not remember the names or faces, just that it happened."

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    "But I shouldn't be forgiven. If someone else had done that to you, I would have fought them." Hitomi states quietly, and then gives a little hurt sound.

    "I don't like it when you use my last name. It doesn't sound right." pause.

    "I should have..." she pauses again, and trails off. "I wanted to slow dance with you. I would have danced all night if I wasn't stupid and scared."

    The little ball of fluff that is the dwarf flying squirrel tilts her head as she regards Gobo, and gives a low soft questioning chitter.

Katsumi Cora has posed:
"I'm sorry. You called me Cora-san, and I assumed that you had wanted the same treatment." Katsumi points out gently, before he lets out a small breath of thought. "If there was a way we could go back in time and try again, I would." he admits. "But we can't. So... the best I can do it just... offer to be your friend and see where we can go from there..." A small pause, thinking on it for a moment before adding. "Hitomi-chan."

And while he waits for her response on that, Kobo offers a small boop of his snoot against Panko. Not a bite, just an 'I acknowledge you' think.

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    "That's because I was trying to be respectful in case you went to punch me. I would have deserved it." Hitomi mutters into the table, but when Katsumi adds Hitomi-chan to his statement, she gives a slight smile, and rolls her head up and onto her arm to look up at him.

    "We can't. But we can do something even better. Would... I ride a motorcycle. Would you like to go for a ride sometime?" she asks, "We can put Kobo in a backpack. I have a spare helmet."

    Panko accepts the noseboop, and boops back. Oh ho, this is going to be so terrible when they're all found out, but Panko's little squeak of acknowledgement to Kobo is too quiet for the humans to hear above them being GIGANTIC DORKS.

Katsumi Cora has posed:
"I mean. For a moment, back at the dance, I might have? But only because I was worried that you weren't going to stop with the throw?" Katsumi admits with just a sly smirk. "You'd seen me flail ineffectively!"

But when she moves to offer the motorcycle ride. "Oh... I've never been on a motorcycle before!" he admits, glancing down as he takes a bite of the fried food and sighs happily. After he swallows, his attention turns back to the question. "...yes, I would like to go on a ride with you, Hitomi-chan."

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    Hitomi gives a small smile, and she rubs the back of her head. "All right, how about I pick you up after school, and we'll go for a ride?" she offers with a grin. "It'll be nice to have someone to ride with. If you like it, I mean. If you don't like it obviously I'm not going to make you ride with me, that'd be mean... and I never want to make you feel like you have to punch me in the face again."

Katsumi Cora has posed:
"That sounds good. And I wouldn't want to punch you in the face." Katsumi responds with a shake of his head and a sigh. "And we'll see. I can show you where my father plays and where we live?" he suggests. "He plays in the National League here, but is mainly a coach instead of a player these days."

"And again, you're forgiven. Nothing for you to be upset about, okay?" he asks, a brief smile offered to her as he finishes off the small lunch. "After school, then." he agrees.

Hitomi Kobe has posed:
    "After school." Hitomi agrees, and then she hops up. "I'll grab my bento back form you then, I have to go set up something for a track and field thing." she explains quickly.

    "... and thank you, Katsumi-kun. I appreciate your forgiveness." she gives a bow of her head, with Panko running up her arm, and turns to head off.

    "Hitomi, you gave him your lunch! You're going to be hungry by the time school ends!" Panko protests.

    "Ah, what's a little stomach rumble?" Hitomi whispers back, holding her chest pocket open. "Katsumi's forgiven me."