2023-06-27: .little witcH
- Log: .little witcH
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Akane Shinjo
- Where: Junk Shop 'Aya', Tsutsujidai
- Date: 2023-06-27
- Summary: Yuliana goes to eat at Junk Shop Aya to check on two of the /other/ victims of Dr. Murasame's lab. Her subtle visitation is part damage control, part curiosity, and part concern -- but Akane has her own curiosities about Yuliana's complicated life, and she gets some more concerning answers out of her over lunch. Meanwhile, Yuliana shares the fine points of food-based empathy with Akane, and Akane offers Yuliana a drink to settle her stomach after she's upset.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana has been keeping herself busy. For the first time in forever she has a proper engineering project, again -- leaving aside the miniature scale Tendus she's been working on making deeply authentic. She's been teaching Sokrova how to dance, because there's nothing funnier than a dancing tiger, and of course she's been attending to her outreach with the Silent Calling. She is a woman who demands a cause, a task, a project.
Even so, she hasn't called Leina, yet.
But she knows she is safe, if not well... and that implies certain things about Murasame's other projects, too. Call it concern or curiosity or damage control -- it doesn't take a genius to estimate the location of two of those labrats. Yuliana tells her dearest wife where she's going, of course; it's all the more important when she's going to the treacherous reaches of space. (Not that it isn't important... the rest of the time. It takes no effort to soothe Elisa's nerves, and it makes her so much happier... why wouldn't she do her wife such a simple courtesy?)
It's not so long afterwards, cosmologically speaking, that the little bell above Aya's door jingles. The woman who steps inside is tall for a South-East Asian, but only by that metric; she wears a newsboy's cap and a bomber jacket, all frilled with fur at the edges and clearly, surely padded inside. Her slacks are black, and her blouse beneath that brown jacket is green, with the scarf wrapped about her neck another shade of that same charming emerald. She slides her pointed sunglasses from her face, as she enters, tucking them into the folds of that neckpiece.
There's a long, ugly scar, running sinister down her face. More -- less striking than the first -- mark her skin, her hands, her cheeks, the right side of her lip. She is an old soldier, and not from a country which encourages scar treatment, evidently.
Not that it's a mystery where she came from. Though she goes to some effort to hide her appearance, she is still recognisably Yuliana Kafim -- formerly of the REA, until they decided to try and complete their experiment. So too her voice, with its worldwide accent coloured recognisably by Zaftran: "Hello, hello!" It's accented, but her Japanese is perfectly functional; she's been speaking it for many years, amongst other tongues.
She doesn't expect to see a lot of visitors, in a hole in the wall like this -- but she does expect to find who she's looking for. At least one of the two, anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane's just finished with remote instruction for the day; she's having a good time of it, all told. Remote full-time doesn't suit her, but the reasons it doesn't suit her are largely addressed by her working at Aya, so this has actually been very productive for her in terms of schooling.
She's only started to move on her other project when Yuliana arrives.
(It's a case mod for a full-size Haro; she's carved a third 'flap' out of the top and done some subtle reshaping of the existing flaps. At this stage, it's not entirely clear what she's planning, but it is very clearly something. There's also two printed circuit boards on the undersides of the existing flaps whose wires disappear into a small hole near the hinge joint.)
When someone arrives, though, she sits up a little straighter and reties her apron, which had gotten a little sloppy during a fairly slow day. "Hello --" she starts, and then she recognizes her.
There's a long pause as she looks to Yuliana, expression thoughtful. "... Oh, I remember you," she says, in her customer service voice. "I -- uh -- please, take a seat? Can I get anything started for you?" A pause, before she adds, "Japanese, English, or French? I don't mind switching."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Hello, hello, hello, hello," and the sentence isn't as dull as it sounds, given Yuliana's repeated her salutations in Japanese, OCU English, Britannian English, and French. She settles on Japanese, though, as she says: "Any are fine, but isn't this easiest on you? I doubt you speak my native tongues." Tongues, plural.
She takes a seat, easily, and smiles to Akane. "I see you've done your research," she says, and her expression is sly. "Why don't you go ahead and show me the house special?"
Of course they have one. What self-respecting diner doesn't?
"How wonderful you remember me, though -- it would be awkward, I think, to show up and have to introduce myself again." Yuliana's still smiling, with one too many teeth, all clustered to the right of her face. She looks to that Haro cover, with her strange, endless green eyes, and then turns back to Akane. "A little mechanic work, is it?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Japanese is my best, yeah," Akane agrees, and with that decides not to worry about it further for now. (It does leave her wondering if she ought to learn another language... she's getting to the point where the best way to improve her French is just using it rather than focused study. Maybe it'd do her good!)
"One special, coming right up! That'll be a set lunch with toast combo." ('Set lunch,' here, in the classic Japanese sense -- rice, soup, main dish, salad, smaller secondary side.) Akane turns to set to work. The kitchen is right there, so that isn't the slightest interruption to her conversational rhythm. It does require her to turn her back on Yuliana, but that's fine.
"Yeah," Akane says, as she oils the pan and gets started. "Rikka and I are making a kitchen helper Haro! Most of the wiring and mechanisms are her job, but they do need places to go." Glancing back to Yuliana with a smile, she adds, "I used to do a lot of sculpting so this kind of thing's pretty easy for me. The design has a chef's hat that can pop out, and inside the hat is a little hot plate!"
... Yuliana was also on Dr. Murasame's subject list, Akane reflects. Even if he was only reviewing her files out of intellectual curiosity... she deserves to know where things are at.
"... Dr. Murasame's gone to ground again," she starts. "We also... found out who was piloting that black Gundam." A beat. "It was Leina. She's free now."
And she knows, of course, that Yuliana knows Leina. After all -- those connections were in their files.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana could tell her that languages just get easier to learn the more she knows, but Akane doesn't say anything, so she can't. She's not like Akane, after all, with those rank transgressions into other people's psyches.
Akane is welcome to turn her back on Yuliana, though. Yuliana wouldn't just attack her in her place of business. ... Akane's not as rude as Shelby is, after all.
"A kitchen helper? Delightful!" Yuliana does sound terribly delighted by such a thing. "And where will you be placing the cooling vents?" It's a subtle kind of prompt; if Akane wants a hot plate inside a mechanism as small as a Haro, she's going to need some way to dissipate that heat, or else she's just going to end up with a molten Haro.
Those, she's reliably informed, scare the customers.
She raises a brow, though, as Akane moves to the meat of the subject. (Subjects.) "I know," she says, and if she knew...
... does that explain why she attacked the Garuda, all on her own, one day?
"No surprise Dr. Murasame's disappeared -- it's a spot of luck Leina's not gone with him. But that does lead me handily to the point," she says, gesturing out, with a palm. "How are you faring, Akane?"
... Akane was on Dr. Murasame's subject list, too.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"One on the backside, and there's a water cooling line planned for right under the hat, too," Akane answers; she has a spare 90 seconds or so, so she scoots back to the counter for a moment, turning that project around. There's lines drawn on the back, sure enough, for cutting a discreet set of cooling vents.
Pieces click into place when Yuliana mentions she knows -- and Akane wonders, a little, just how much lead time Yuliana had on the rest of them. ... Could things have gone differently, if she hadn't become so frightened over the course of that conversation...?
... It's not worth thinking about now, but it might end up being a rough night once she's got some time to chew on it all to herself.
(... it's easy to say you could have done things differently, after all.)
It's a surprise, to hear she's getting checked up on. "I'm okay," she says, finally returning to working on the food. There's a lot she could say to Yuliana, but... well, all told, Akane's a withdrawn young lady. "Rikka's doing really well for only being a month out from the whole thing..."
It's her turn to sigh contentedly. "Rikka's really strong." There's definitely a dreamy quality to her words, as she reaches over and flips the eggs for the toast combo. 30 seconds later, she's got the whole thing plated, and sets to work arranging the plates and bowls on the tray.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Very nice!" Yuliana chirps. She's being generous, of course. It's the acceptable minimum. But Awakened teenagers are... fickle creatures, and whatever she's trying to achieve here, she won't get there by talking down Akane's engineering attempts.
Her fingers drum, on the countertop, as she leans on a hand. A lot about Rikka, there. "I'm pleased she's well," she says, and it doesn't sound insincere. (For all she's giving off a little impatience.) "I wouldn't have minded running into her, either, you understand. But here you are, and here I am..."
She closes her eyes; she takes a breath.
"And, I..."
It's a far-off sentence that starts off much shorter than the Japanese -- and not in a way Akane might recognise; a little like 'i ya,' but it doesn't sound like she's saying no, in context.
(Because she's not. That's Zaftran.)
The 'atashi' -- not 'watashi', Yuliana's more casual and more confident than that -- of the sentence is restored, as she switches her language back, a moment later. "I won't belabour the point," she settles on. "I'm sure you know enough of that place to last yourself a lifetime, as it is. But it's good you're out. Good," she repeats, once again.
"Ah, and so -- how's the set?" She asks, looking to the plates.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Thanks," Akane enthuses. She needs to run the actual spec past Rikka, too -- but it's good to hear that someone who seems familiar thinks it's at least 'very nice.'
Akane finishes setting up the set meal, listening to Yuliana. "I think she's out with her mom right now? Whenever both of them go out together, I take up the shop. Or sometimes Vit does," she explains. Picking up the tray, she turns and brings it to Yuliana. "One set meal! Mama thinks mine's okay at this point, but she's Aya's real genius... let me know what you think!" She's enough of a home cook to have picked things up fast, at least.
"As for Leina... I don't actually know a lot yet," Akane answers, finally looping back to the person she's fairly certain Yuliana is most interested in, of the set. "She's headed to a 3G base, I think." She's careful not to tell her which; Leina can reopen communications with people on her own schedule.
"How are things with Dr. Kafim?" Akane asks, and there's about half a hitch in the sentence as she decides between 'Elisa' and 'Dr. Kafim.' If there's a tie to break, surely it's for propriety's sake, and Akane is a terribly proper young lady.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It won't burn the place down, at least.
"Vit, huh?" Yuliana asks, as if she knows him. (She does not.) She doesn't care that much, though, because -- snacks! "Looks good," Yuliana comments, before she snaps her chopsticks and gets started.
Nibble, nibble, munch...
"I appreciate you going for yakizakana over tonkatsu," Yuliana says, as she eats. "I don't eat much pork, generally speaking." She has some more of the most important bowl, and comments: "Try boiling the rice half a minute less -- I can tell here that you're still over-occupied with it being done. But the miso soup is wonderful! No notes."
Yuliana is a wetworker, an engineer, a saboteur international, and... a food critic, apparently?!
(Yuliana LOVES food. She's not nearly as good as making it as she is at criticising other people's attempts to make it, but being fair, those are two different skill-sets.)
"Ah, then we're of a kind," she goes on to say, of Leina. "Dr. Mass has assured me she'll take care of her. I... don't know that she'd welcome my greetings, as of yet," and just who 'she' is isn't obvious at all. One thing Japanese excels at is the use of obfuscating pronouns.
She does sound a little sad, though.
That sadness flees her voice to make room for all the warmth which settles there, speaking of her wife. "My Elisa's very well, thank you," she says, entirely too fond, her gaze dropping down to her rich rings and the purple bracelet around her wrist. "We've been keeping our heads down, of course... but there's something to be said for staying in. It's quite cosy!" She sounds happy about it, anyway. "We went ice skating just the other day... it was wonderful."
Which means they live in a place with ice, probably. Maybe. Unless they went to an ice rink. Can Akane possibly imagine those two going to an ice rink? (Would the patrons survive?)
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Ahahaa... that's a pretty good catch. I keep getting worried about food safety stuff while I'm working here," Akane admits, rubbing at the back of her head. "I'm glad you like the soup, though! I've been experimenting with different kinds of dashi in different amounts lately. That one's three quarters normal, one quarter shiitake dashi..."
Those are Akane-specific innovations, so she doesn't mind giving them out. It's good to get critique on her cooking, too. "I think I might also be overcooking the rice because I'm still kinda in paella mode. You actually just burn it a little for that, haha... the first time I heard that I was like, 'there's no way that's good,' but it's actually great."
Yuliana's surprisingly easy to make small talk around, Akane notices. It's actually kind of nice. "I can't speak for Leina, but Rikka took a little while to get to the stage where she could take unannounced guests," comes the younger girl's unsolicited advice. "Give her a week or so to get her feet under her, and call ahead, and it'll probably be okay?" A beat. "Just let her decide when she's up for it."
It takes a little while for Akane to figure out how to approach the next topic at all. "It sounds like you two have a pretty good back and forth... I wonder if you two have ever had a fight, even."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Shiitake dashi? It's very good. I wonder, have you ever tried a little kombu?" That's a type of seaweed which is more umami than nori -- and with a much higher iodine content, which means it usually gets boiled in stock, rather than eaten directly.
She clicks her chopsticks together in the air, and exclaims: "Ah, yes, paella! That would do it. Well, I'm sure you'll learn to differentiate the styles with more practice." She takes another mouthful of rice. "All that aside, it's still good enough. I'll be finishing it."
And she will, in fact, though she's adept at talking around eating. Yuliana's capacity to sustain small talk is, in fact, a trained skill -- but she doesn't see the need to tell Akane that. "I suppose I'll video call her," she says, a touch airily. "That's the only way I could speak to anyone, for a while, after they rescued me... well," she sighs, "we'll see how it goes, I suppose. It's her decision... it would be sad if my efforts were insufficient, but isn't the important thing that she's safe?" The little emphasis she puts on the words, the stress which suggests that it would bother her more than she's letting on for Leina not to pick up her calls, they all hint that it isn't such an uncomplicated call.
Maybe Yuliana is just sad she couldn't help.
That's certainly the picture she's painting, anyway.
If it takes Akane a little while to approach things, that's fine. Yuliana has food to eat, and she is eating. She pauses her lunch, though, when Akane finally finds the words to put to it. "No, not..." Yuliana starts, and pauses, with a light frown.
Does she tell Akane this?
Maybe. She is trying to get her on-side, and Akane is an abused child. Surely a girl like her can't conceive of things being uncomplicatedly good.
"... well, I suppose there was one time," she sighs, glancing aside. "Just briefly. The military sent me on a mission without telling me what they expected from me, and then punished me for doing just what they thought I'd do a little too indiscretely... my Elisa was distraught at this, of course, so she killed the man who ultimately gave the order. But -- well, I was terribly indoctrinated at the time, you understand. I couldn't conceive of wanting the people who hurt me to face consequences. So I yelled at her for doing that, without even asking me..." Yuliana sinks, a little, into her stool. She is ashamed of this; she doesn't have to act.
"It's hardly the first time I acted so violently, but this time it was because of what she'd done... Elisa was terribly upset. I felt... awful. I hadn't empathised with her position at all... well, I quickly realised I'd been a brute about it all, so I was able to set things right. But I was very unreasonable about it all... well," Yuliana sighs, with an overlong blink, "I couldn't have been reasonable. But I'm sure my demands made it harder for her, seeing me like that... since she didn't want to go against my wishes, even though they were hurting me."
Perhaps she's said too much. The guilt roils in her gut. She tries to displace it with some grilled fish, but it's not so easy to replace the taste of bitter regret over hurting someone so important to her.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Yeah! The normal dashi is part kombu, part bonito flakes," Akane answers. "I used to just use instant, but cooking here has gotten me really used to making my own, so I'm probably gonna start doing that more often too." She knows her way around the cooking implements, at least -- it's clear she's got an enthusiasm for it, too. "I'm glad to hear it's good! We don't get a ton of customers, and even less for just the diner part, so I don't get a lot of chances at feedback..."
She listens to Yuliana, nodding along. "Yeah -- I get that. There were a lot of people I would only talk to that way when I left the city, too... sometimes I still can only handle, like, talking to someone through a door." It's a little embarrassing, and more than she might want to admit -- but Yuliana is proving easy to talk to.
That emphasis gets filed away, but Akane doesn't press on it. She's been there, too. Some days she still is there. "Just let her take it at her own pace. It's not like it means she hates you if she takes three extra days to call back. Rikka and I still weren't talking every day before all this stuff..."
Akane listens to Yuliana's anecdote -- and it's a complicated one, as it happens. "I've had that kinda fight too -- though, uh, no one died over it either way," comes her strained answer. ... this is sure a complicated home life. It'll take her some time to sort out how she feels about this particular story of Elisa and Yuliana's home life, to say the least.
"You okay?" Akane asks, noticing the tension in Yuliana and the slower eating. "... Actually, uh -- how about something to drink? My treat. Is Calpis okay?" ... If she's put Yuliana a little off her lunch, well -- maybe it'll help if she gets something to settle her digestion, a bit.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Really? Fancy that!" Whether Akane has actually taught Yuliana something new, or whether she's feeding her something to teach her, is a question for the ages. She sounds surprised enough. "What a shame -- I do hope your patronage improves."
Yuliana doesn't give Akane any grief for her doorversations, at least. "It can be difficult to face people," she says, instead, sympathetic.
"Ahh, I suppose it doesn't," she sighs, when Akane gives her advice on Leina. "It's just difficult to remember, sometimes... I'm afraid those assumptions don't get much easier with age." It's not being an adult that's informing Yuliana's emotional lability, but anyway.
Her reassurance in the wake of the next topic is a touch more strained. "Sometimes people die. It's quite normal, actually." And it just might be, with how Yuliana spoke about how they all died last time Elisa saved her, too.
Just how often does Elisa saving Yuliana come with her killing everyone around her?
She blinks, again, and swallows something down. (It's not the rice.) "I'm fine," she insists, but thinly. The offer of a drink she can accept a little easier, at least -- "Yes, that would be nice, actually," -- and it gets her to raise her head and look at Akane again, at least.
She's still smiling, but it's a touch more fragile, now. Tap it in the wrong place, and it will shatter.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Yeah -- it's always kinda nervewracking when you have to sit there and wait for a call back, right?" Akane offers, doing her best to empathize. "I used to be way worse about it... honestly some days it's still a little bad."
... to what extent is that Yuliana's natural opinion, versus Elisa's training of her opinion, versus the REA's training of her opinion? Akane thinks pushing that is a bit beyond her pay grade, but she does offer, "I don't think it was normal when my kaiju were killing anyone who slighted me or Gridman or Rikka." A half-beat, this time, before she adds, "But I guess things are different sometimes..."
She's hesitant to do more than underline the similarity -- and the difference. Yuliana already seems a little out of sorts; it's fine to push on unbalance, but you still need to watch where you step.
Akane brings over a bottle of Calpis, finally. "Here you go," she says, before discreetly plopping a 1 gilla coin into the register. "If you want anything else, feel free to ask."
After making sure all the burners are off and everything's situated, Akane returns to the side of the counter where she'd been working on the Haro, where it's a little easier to talk casually.
She doesn't press on any new topic, though, letting Yuliana take command of the conversation's direction.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I've just... always been an intense woman." Not always, not this much. But close enough to always, anyway.
Yuliana frowns, when Akane talks about it not being normal for her kaiju to kill people. She sighs, and settles on: "... well, little witch, perhaps I just don't see it that way. That's never been my method. If using kaiju isn't normal... haa, that's not my territory to comment on." ... she's picked up on a different emphasis in that message, maybe.
She takes the bottle, and cracks it open -- takes a sip. Another, after a moment. She replaces the cap before trying again with the set lunch, thoughtfully; it wouldn't do to spill it everywhere.
"Excuse me," she settles on, after a moment. "I don't... deal well with being faced by wrong I've done. Generally, the fault isn't mine... well, it's difficult to deal with, given that. I shouldn't have brought it up, but I expected you wouldn't believe me, if I'd said we'd never fought at all. Really, aside from that incident, we've gotten along perfectly..."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane gives Yuliana a little space to have a thought. She wants to protest that it wasn't the kaiju that were the problem -- but explaining that to an adult who seemingly struggles to assess her own situation. All she can do is lay track, bit by bit, from her current position. Maybe Leina'd have insight, or better luck... As is, Akane mostly feels weird about being called 'little witch.' It's not quite how she sees herself.
So instead, she moves on to food again. It's safer. "It's good, right?" she asks, about the Calpis. "It's really good if you're the kinda person whose stomach's a little sensitive, so there's a lot around the shop. A couple other similar yogurt drinks, too." One wonders how the former and latter follow from one another, but Akane's just continuing the small talk, really.
The conversation moves back to Yuliana, and the 'fault,' and 'wrong she's done.' "Well... honestly, this sounds pretty believable," Akane remarks. She's not sure if she buys Murasame's overly-cynical take on this entirely, but Elisa gradually extracting Yuliana from her former lab and into her waiting arms feels...
... well, Akane sure feels some sort of way about it.
"Hm... well, it's definitely important to have someone in your corner!" Akane finishes, just a bit too enthusiastic. And that much is true -- even if Akane has some concerns about that 'someone' being Elisa, for Yuliana.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
That's the categorisation system which exists in Yuliana's head. It may not agree with Akane's paradigm. There are many, in this world.
"Oh, my stomach's not that feeble," Yuliana assures Akane, with a wan smile. "Though it's a kind gesture, all the same." Which might give some more context to how she claims she's not generally at fault -- that she won't even claim that she has such a weakness as feeling ill from her emotions.
Is that how it happened? Wasn't Elisa just there for Yuliana, when no one else was? "Good," she says, instead, because she can't know Akane's thoughts -- any more than Akane can know hers. What she hears is that Akane can believe their relationship, and she's glad of that.
She smiles, and warmth returns to it. "It is, isn't it?" She asks, though she's not really asking. "Really, I'm being unfair... my Elisa wouldn't fault me for what happened. She's always so supportive..." Yuliana sighs, happily. Now her set lunch is finished, she can put the chopsticks down to clasp her hand over her heart instead.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Don't worry about it," Akane says, vaguely waving things off. "It's good to have a chance to try it anyway, right? Like, you mostly find this stuff in Japanese enclaves and the occasional Britannian place... it's like you were getting at me with about the gyudon, right?" While she's nervous, she still does her best to give Yuliana a smile. "I'm not saying you'd never have a chance to have it, but you know. It's good to eat stuff that's more local."
That sort of passive, never-faulted-for-anything attitude at home... Akane knows that all too well. She elects to turn away from Yuliana; conveniently, she has an excuse to -- remembering to at least transfer pans and dishes to the sink. It gives her a second to get her attitude in check before she upsets Yuliana further and ruins... whatever it is she's been trying to build.
"As long as you're happy with yourself where you are, I think that kinda thing is great," Akane offers, still looking away. "I wasn't really having a great time here after the first ten months or so, but it took me a whole other year to figure that out, hahaha... and by then I was beating myself up over it."
A pause. "Care for dessert?" she asks, curiously. "Our cheesecake's really good... mama made that one fresh this morning!" She's really eager to see how Orie's work holds up to Yuliana's evidently sophisticated palate...
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Yes, that's true," Yuliana nods. "I do always like to know what people typically eat, in an area. And let's be honest -- having one diner's teishoku means nothing but that you've had that diner's teishoku." A set lunch is an incredibly varied meal!
Yuliana doesn't fault Akane for seeing to the dishes, of course. It's a normal thing to do. And surely Yuliana must be trying to reach out in some way, coming here, mustn't she?
(Oh, to be sure, she's trying to establish positive motive in Leina's satellite company. But, well, she can check in with Akane since it's convenient, even if she's a wretchedly sensitive soul. Spending time in a lab is harrowing. Since it's on her way, she can afford to express some concern.)
"I'm very happy," Yuliana volunteers, just as soon as Akane's finished her sentence. "Not to say it's easy being one of the Federation's most wanted, but my Elisa sees to anything I could possibly need. Really, there's no one more wonderful..." She's gone all dreamy, again, talking about her wife. Lovey-dovey, even. Who knew Yuliana could even do lovey-dovey?
"... ah?" She asks, pulled from her reverie to look to Akane again. "Oh, I don't see why not! I do like cheesecake." She must like a lot of sweets, by the look of her. ... but then, she did grow up in the world's foremost breadbasket.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Yep! You could hit every diner even in this little city and only see a tiny amount of overlap," Akane agrees, and talking about food seems like it's relatively safe for her. Certainly it's the least nerve-wracking topic available to them.
... she can't exactly fault Yuliana for getting lovey-dovey, either -- she certainly is, herself, no stranger to spacing out in random locations when she notices a scent or a color and starts thinking about it a little too much. "Hahaa, yeah, getting big-time Federation attention is no joke..." It's all she can do -- she really wants to tell Yuliana things, but... well, Yuliana's probably seen her own file, too, given the source of that intelligence.
The things Akane has concluded will likely be nothing new, if she just says those words in that order. Indeed, she might ruin whatever shot Yuliana has.
Nodding, Akane moves to the refrigerator and gets a slice for Yuliana. It is, to its credit, extremely good cheesecake -- there's a reason Orie's cooking remains a target for Akane to chase, rather than something she's overcome.
"Don't be afraid to stop by again," Akane adds, hesitantly. Maybe that's enough for her, at this stage -- to tell Yuliana there are other places she could be. Certainly, it was easier to find a path forward after her own ordeal when she understood that there were other places she could go.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Isn't it interesting?" Yuliana enthuses, and it would be difficult to feign. "I have my favourite foods, of course -- but I really couldn't imagine not trying everything. You don't know people until you know how they eat, you know. Even if something seems farfetched or disgusting to you, being able to appreciate how it's an everyday meal for someone else really does wonders for realising the depth of human experience."
Well, Yuliana will never appreciate the subtle differences and similarities of humanity on the psychic plane, so apparently the gustatory plane will have to do.
She laughs, at least, when Akane agrees about that attention. "Really, it's all right. Jahannam's flames will freeze before the Republic grasps hold of me again." Even leaving aside her own skill, Elisa simply wouldn't let it happen.
That last part is left implied.
Yuliana eats the cheesecake, and, indeed -- "This is delicious!" She declares, cheerfully. "Sweet, but with just the right balance of savoury to keep it steady... do pass on my compliments, won't you?" There are worse messages from Yuliana to pass along. Probably.
"Certainly," she smiles, and she takes -- some message from it, anyway. "In any case, I'm glad to see you're doing well, after such a wretched experience. I hope this will cover the meal?" She leaves -- that's a good eighty gilla, just kind of laid down on the bench by a pressing hand, as she rises up.
"Do call if you need anything, though," she says, as she slips her winged sunglasses on agan. "Oh -- do you have my number?" She asks it as if it's occurred to her as an afterthought, and not her knowing very well she doesn't have it.
(She couldn't get it through any... alternate means.)
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
'You don't really know people until you know how they eat,' huh -- that definitely slots into Akane's life in a very neat, efficient way. ... It really is unfair to be the sort of person who doesn't make it obvious what her favorite foods are but expects herself to know absolutely everyone else's. "Yep! It's really neat how, like... Leina's diet is totally different from mine! I wouldn't have even thought of that..." she offers instead, since she doesn't really want to read out all of her own damage right here.
"Yeah, good luck with that," Akane says, and it sounds sincere rather than flippant. "I wouldn't wish an REA blacksite on anyone, haha..."
When the cheesecake meets with positive regard, Akane seems pretty happy. "I'll tell mama the second she gets back," Akane enthuses, with a big smile. She's sure that, even if the source is a little strange, a cooking compliment will brighten everyone's day. Looking down at the eighty gilla, Akane blinks once, twice -- and then decides to just roll with it. "Yeah," she says, moving to the register. ... she leaves the 1 gilla she threw in there for the Calpis just the same, despite the truly gratuitous overpayment.
"... I don't have your number, actually -- could I get it?" Akane asks, when prompted. She's a little bit on autopilot when she does it -- it's a standard script, and she's just going through it.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It's interesting, right?" Yuliana smiles. It's hard to call her motives entirely pure, with the way she's come and presented herself, but she is pleased to point out to the youth just how deep food is as a subject. Even a youth like Akane, perhaps. She's a wretched little creature, but it's not her fault, not really. A flaw of her birth...
Yuliana laughs. "Oh, I had eleven years of blacksites. I think I've done my time by now." She leaves aside all the people she blackbagged and brought in for 'questioning'. They're not about to tell on her.
(Some of them are dead. Some of them are in forever prison. Some of them are... not... fit to talk about it.)
Yuliana smiles, as Akane takes the money. (She is aware, of course, that she's overpaying. To point it out would be to ruin the entire point of the exercise.) And when Akane asks for her number, well -- she pulls out her phone. "Sure, it's just here --"
The exchange is quite smooth, really. That's the wonder of modern technology! Why, she doesn't even put any spyware on Akane's phone as she does it.
Mostly because the inner contents of a teenager's phone don't actually matter that much to her.
"Wonderful," Yuliana smiles, when it's done. "Now you'll be able to track me down! For now, I'd best get home. I'm sure you're very busy, little witch Tsutsujidai. All my best to Rikka and her recovery." And she says the appellation warmly enough; being a witch is a good thing, apparently, at least as far as Yuliana is concerned. "Ahh, how is it said... ah, yes, see ya!" Her 'jaa ne!' is pretty convincing, as she turns and lifts a hand in a wave, leaving the store. She must be hip to the youth.
What was she trying to accomplish, coming out here..? Oh, yes -- damage control.
... it's nice to see the other rats are healing well, anyway.
(A visit can be about more than one thing.)