Chapter 3: Woes of Mild Starvation
'I'm a woman. I can be as contrary as I choose.'
The next morning was an exercise in restraining Rose, because when Papa Shin woke up, he remembered none of last night.
"Mama Haruka isn't even cold in her grave yet and already Papa's been sleeping around!" he screeched as he awoke and took stock of exactly where it hurt. "I'm sorry Haruka-chan!" he looked up to the heavens, tears pouring down his face.
Yori with her far-too-sensitive-for-this-shit hearing jumped out of bed, her eyes still closed and hands up in a mildly racist karate position.
It took her a few seconds to remember (would she ever reflexively remember?) that total darkness was not normal, and so she opened her eyes, welcoming the heat of the morning and the yellow lighting up her tiny room with a weary sigh.
"Papa! Is everything okay?" she asked worriedly, not entirely sure what was wrong. (She knew she shouldn't have interacted with so many shinobi! They had come to kill her and she had no idea what to do—)
"I will never have sex again!" Papa Shin screamed, loud enough for the entire household to hear, and Yori face-palmed.
Someone popped their head into their house after Yori quickly changed and brushed her teeth. She was far taller than Yori (which wasn't really difficult as she was a midget), with an A cup (three sizes smaller than Yori).
"What's the noise for so early in the morning Shin-han?" asked Nae, her dark brown hair in a low ponytail, ready for the misery of the day to follow.
Papa Shin turned to her so fast Nae startled, and then came crawling over to her with the speed of a viper and began sobbing even louder, his hangover undoubtedly being a contributing factor to his tears. "You still have faith in me, yes Nae-chan?"
"Uh…of course I do Shin-han." she said, patting him on the head a couple of times as he began crying comically again.
Yori suppressed a twitch of annoyance. Baka papa! Clinging to an eight year old like that! So…vulgar…
"Ne, Nae-chan, do you want to come in for breakfast?" she asked, a soft smile lighting up her face. It's the least I can do after papa's idiocy.
Nae had a light blush on her face as she saw Yori's smile, her heart beating faster for some reason. "I can have Nee-chan's cooking?" she asked happily, and when Yori nodded, she ran into the kitchen and sat there looking very similar to an overexcited puppy (Yori could even imagine a tail wagging), causing Papa Shin to smack his face onto the hard ground.
He got up with even more tears streaming down his face. "No one loves me!"
"Papa!"
It was an early morning as usual, and Yori and Nae worked hard to clean up all the rooms they were assigned to, with Nae being incapable of doing many of the jobs, considering she wasonly eight. Yori managed everything, being surprisingly competent considering how unreliable she looked.
But then, cleaning is a biddable trait in any world, so it wasn't something she had to learn all over again after all.
Yori remembered how difficult it was to learn how to speak whatever this language was (it was at the tip of her tongue what it was called, but Yori just couldn't seem to remember), how easily she had forgotten her own language (even that was really hard to remember, which just made her realise how useless she really was), how mama and papa had thought she was just dumb when she still hadn't managed to speak full sentences by the age of four and how she still had an alleged 'adorable' lisp to this day, where some of her 'r's came out as 'l's.
The bedsheets were stripped in various rooms and brought to the laundry room, the floors were swept and the shelves were dusted and wiped. This took Nae and Yori the entire morning to do, as per usual, and then Yori had to go finish the grocery shopping that she couldn't the day before due to Ikanago and his interference (it scared her to go outside…what if she met canon characters!?)
Sighing dramatically before carefully peeping out of the main doors of the Kazekage Tower and seeing that the coast was clear of any recognisable figures, Yori headed back into the marketplace, lamenting the fact that the best products would have run out yesterday and only scraps would be left.
Maybe I don't really need good tomatoes, or any tomatoes at all for that matter…she mused.
A few essentials she'd missed out on yesterday were bought, the quality and quantity both poor, the shopkeepers grumpy and unhelpful, the heat murderous and her own spirit waning with every bad egg she came across.
War really was hard, especially on the tummy…she thought morosely, pouting at the expired tinned fruits.
"Yori-chan!" screamed a voice from behind her, excitement hitting her in waves. She didn't turn around to acknowledge Komushi-san (because of course it was him) and instead began sweating more than she already was and began the world's most conspicuous crabwalk towards the beckoning backroom.
Unfortunately, the thing about outrunning shinobi (of the excited variety no less) was that it was just plain impossible, especially for someone like Yori, who just seemed to attract pushy people.
He reached her (with no Sasori in tow, thank Kami-sama!) and tapped her shoulder, completely oblivious to the fact that she was trying to run away from him. "Hey, are you free 'cause I'm free and we could get that lunch right now because I don' have to report to the missions desk for a while yet but s'alright if you don't want to but you do want to right? So let's go!"
Yori whimpered, being unable (and unwilling really, who wants their head bitten off anyway?!) to interject. This guy has a serious case of mouth diarrhoea…
Komushi with his dull red hair and unacceptably wide grey eyes took her to a place called…Yori had to squint really hard to see what was written on the peeling sign…The Gassy Goose?!
It was a small pub with quite a few patrons (none of whom, she was sure, could afford what they were ordering), wide enough windows and a musty smell that seemed to cling to everything. Yori gulped, unwilling to go in but being dragged in anyway.
"Oi, Komushi! Nice catch!" someone yelled from the barstools. Yori blushed in embarrassment, hoping the earth would swallow her soon because this was just…
"Up yours Ganji!" Komushi yelled back cheerfully (What was wrong with this guy!?)Turning to her, he asked, "What would you like Yori-chan? The food here isn' the best, but then, no place has good food in the first place, so it has great food really!"
At his smiling expectant face, Yori was loathe to admit she'd never been to a pub (and with good reason too, Gassy Goose…seriously, who in their right minds would want to subject themselves to the indignity?) and therefore had no idea what the cuisine was like.
"Um…I'll have what you have." she said, looking at her feet with unflinching concentration. She hoped he wasn't a fan of baby carrots, because if she saw even one, she might actually start crying. And wouldn't that be embarrassing?
Some guys at the table over from the one Komushi had taken them to wolf-whistled.
Komushi flipped them a bird casually and then said, "Okay! I'll have kabsa, ful tameez and kunafe with some coffee for dessert! Is that alright with you? I'll be paying o'course."
For the first time in over eight years, there was not a trace of nervousness on Yori's face in the presence of a shinobi. She smiled radiantly at him, her wide blue eyes sparkling. "I can have all of that? Really?"
Komushi had a light blush on his face as he scratched the back of his neck. "Y-yeah!"
The waiter was called and the order was placed, and Yori hadn't been this excited in a long time. Rationing was hard on a girl that remembered having three full course meals a day, with snacks whenever she had so desired.
Food brought people together, and it was working its magic on the two people sitting opposite each other (the grocery bags sitting on the third chair) in a dingy pub with a raucous crowd.
The waiter brought a platter of dull orange rice that smelled mouth-wateringly divine, a flavourful bowl of a creamy paste and two large naans, and when they had eaten their fill of these two things (Yori was crying with happiness on the inside) vermicelli with a white sticky gooey cheese filling was brought out with two cups of mildly sweetened coffee.
It was more than Yori had eaten in one sitting in the last thirteen years, but she thought she was in love.
"How do you make these?" she asked Komushi, who looked startled at the unwavering curiosity in her voice.
He marvelled at the fact that, as Sasori so aptly put it, when she didn't look like they were going to eat her, she actually had a very sweet voice and expression.
"Don' know, but we can ask!" he said cheerfully, before asking, "So, you and Ikanago-san huh? How did that happen?"
"Um…" she fidgeted, before taking a deep breath to finally dispel the misconception. "Actually, Ikanago-san is just an…acquaintance. We're not really…you know, like that."
"Really?! Oh, this is just amazing!" he said, his excitement a whole other level of inappropriateness.
Quickly, before his imagination could do with that information what it pleased, Yori said, "But I'm not interested in a relationship at this stage, really Komushi-san! I'm only fourteen!"
"Eh, so what? I'm fifteen and Sasori-kun's fourteen too! This truly is perfect!"
And he was gone, his head in the clouds. Yori sighed once more, but when she bit into the kunafe and her mouth exploded with the sweet fluffy goodness, she found herself caring a lot less than she had previously.
When the waiter came with the cheque, Komushi told him to "put it on Akasuna no Sasori's tab!" so cheerfully that Yori felt worried for his life when Sasori inevitably found out. But she got the recipe for the kunafe, so she forgot about it soon enough.
He walked her home, talking about their families. ("Sorry for your loss Yori-chan. I'm sure your Okaa-san is proud of you!" "Thank you Komushi-san." And "You live with Sasori-san?" "Yeah! Well, him and his obaa-san and his great uncle, but yeah! I work for'em, and the village, 'nd I help with Sasori-kun's poisons!")
Reaching the Kazekage Tower, Komushi turned fully to her and said, "This was a lot of fun Yori-chan! We should do this again some time!"
She nodded, thinking about the kunafe with so much love and adoration…
"How about the day after tomorrow? Sasori-kun will be back by then and we can go for a meal together!" he said, a grin on his face and, of course, undiluted excitement in his eyes.
She was about to say no (food was one thing, Akasuna no bloody waySasori was quite another), but then she felt something on her left ankle.
Looking down, trembling with fear, she saw—"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
"Yori-chan?" Komushi asked, startled.
"Get if off, get it off, get it off!" she screeched hysterically, and when Komushi looked down at what she was looking at, he saw a tiny little spider the size of a grain of rice, and sweatdropped.
"Hold still Yori-chan!" and he got the spider off, squashing it between his fingers, to Yori's disgusted relief.
He looked at the time and hurriedly said, "So, see you Tuesday Yori-chan! Wear something nice!"
"Wait, like a…date? Komushi-san!"
Chiyo, even though she had a stable career (for a shinobi anyway), lots of money, plenty of friends and a hobby she could obsess over without raising too many eyebrows, just reallywanted great grandchildren to pass on the family line of expertise.
At the rate her grandson was going, she would be dead and buried and he would still be puttering around with his puppets with a blank face...
It was unacceptable! So, she'd enlisted Sasori's only friend in her greatest quest - to find him a nice girl, preferably with birthing hips and a healthy sense of self-preservation (goodness knew her own son had picked a girl as insanely impulsive as him, and look at where that had landed her grandson...), before the end of the year so that she might at least dream about a happy life with titchy toddlers mixing poisons that no one could find a cure for.
Mixing another batch of poisons (if Tsunade of the Great Bust managed to find a counter for this one, Chiyo would eat her head cover!), Chiyo contemplated her grandson's unemotional disposition sadly.
After the failed attempt at finding affection from puppet lookalikes of his parents, her Sasori had become far too fatalistic and withdrawn for her liking. He was strong and efficient and…okay, not polite, but at least civil when he could be bothered, and yet...
Maybe all he needed was a woman's touch? Preferably near his genitals, but she wasn't too fussed about the details.
She cackled madly, causing her younger brother Ebizō to look up from his own work with barely suppressed apprehension. It was never a good sign when his sister was in a good mood...
The war was in full swing and the Honoured Siblings were working overtime before they were deployed once more. Sasori would be back in time for them to miss him completely, and then he was likely to be sent out again after a couple of days of rest.
This period of the war was different to what it had been before the stalemate—now they could go for a short period of time, sabotage, beat up or, in Sasori's case, massacre the enemy, and then come home for a few days to rest again, like as if they were going on missions and coming back.
Chiyo contemplated that. All-out warfare had never been her style (poisoning the water supply of those tree huggers, though, was) and she was glad that everyone got a break, but the need for messengers had definitely increased.
Komushi was one of them.
She worried about that excitable boy, really she did.
But if there was anything that boy was good for, it was for knowing Sasori better than anyone else. He would find the perfect girl for him, of thatChiyo had no doubt.
She was just worried that that kind of girl didn't really exist…
Almost simultaneously, miles apart, Yori and Sasori sneezed, both twitching in mild annoyance, before one went back to making dinner and the other continued making minced meat of his enemies.
By the way, did you know that, barring Yori, mama and papa, every other character I've mentioned is canon? Well, and Ganji, but he doesn't really count. Thoughts?