Double Standards

The apartment building the Kaori selected wasn't the sort of place that many shinobi chose. They usually had the money for better options. The wall paper was peeling. The kitchen and bathrrom were both are work of art, from a certain point of veiw. Who ever designed them was dramatically awful at interior design. The counter tops, which seemed to emulate marble, were some sort of off yellow with little flecks of brown. kaori thought that there would be more complaints, but Aji only had one simple recomendation:

"Could we get some curtains. I know you chose the place because you can see the village gates from here, but I can't help but feel like... well, like somebody is going to stare at me through that enourmous window"

Kaori didn't care about all that. She would just scare off any peeping toms or whatever, but if that was all she needed to keep Aji silent about it then thats what she was going to do. They were remarkably easy to please when they remembered their place as a foreign invader of her body and a parasite. She had to admit, though, that the window gave an amazing veiw of the bedroom to any random stranger who happened to wonder in just the right spot.

"Fine. We'll go buy some. Is that all you need or are you going to make me go out agian for some other dumb shit later?"

Aji was silent, so that was all the answer she needed. As she left she made one final comment, because she knew that Aji wouldn't talk back in public. "If you need something else, you go yourself. I'm not your mom."

The market was not far either, another reason that she chose such a location for her living space. They first went to a furnature store and purchased some plain black curtains. Black went with everything. It was also a way of playing up her personality, too. She spent a time trying to be a professional entertainer, and she carried over many of the things that she enjoyed about it. This included an exagerated, bombastic personality. She enjoyed that entertainers didn't seem to mind her unusual traits. They even valued them at times. This was around the time that Aji began to hide under the black cloak Kaori wore everywhere, and hiding their face under the mask she had strapped to her. After purchasing the curtains, she made her way to a nearby food stand. As she sat on a stool, she could hear a quiet whispering coming from Aji, "Okay but no liquir."

"Yes. I know. We agreed that I would quit." After that, she simply sat waiting for one of the workers to notice her. She would try and get their attention if they took long enough, but the worker was a young man who was clearly struggling with the job. So she would let him be for now.

Walking through the market in her casual day clothes, Diana could still feel the civilian populace have their eyes on her, be it joy, curiosity, and even friendliness; but there was an undercurrent still there. Sure they were being respectful, having heard the news that if she wasn't wearing any sort of official clothing (unless she put on the dumb kage hat, in that case no matter the clothes it was business time) she was to be treated less like a kage and more like her clan head status, but even that could only go so far. The curse of having power was that some people would worry about making the wrong step around her and having their life fall apart, something she could sympathize with yet the best she could do was just mitigate.

Despite that undercurrent she was constantly aware of, she was taking the day off in order to allow her body to rest, especially given she had been working almost nonstop for the past few weeks (baring a few interruptions such as the arrival of Oda, the reawakening of Masaru, and of course basic body functions like food and sleep) so today was her 'treat day'. She had already purchased a few food items as well as a new set of clothes, but as she made her way past one of the smaller food stands she'd stop as she spotted someone she hadn't expected to see.

Walking over, she would greet the unexpected encounter; that of her students. "Oh, hello again Genin Jin, I am glad to see that you are alive and awake." While she didn't like to admit it, Kaori and Aji Jin had slipped under her radar during her time as Tsuchikage. Even so, the twins were her students, and as such it was her job to make sure that despite everything that was going on they were still progressing in some fashion. "I do hope that I am not interrupting anything important for the two of you today."

While she waited for the employee to notice her, Aji tugged on the black cloak in order to bring her attention back to a woman that Kaori only vaguely remembered. Perhaps it was somewhat rude, but she did not make a habit of getting to know people. She didn't expect them to go anywhere, she just didn't care. While she couldn't recall her name, she did recall several details, such as their mnissions together, their mutual freindship with Adam, and her status as Tsuchikaze.

In response to her question, Kaori gave out a half hearted, "Yes. Same goes to you." Greetings were nice. Small talk was pointless, though. Anyone else she would have likely ignored, but ignoring somebody with such high status was probably a bad choice. So, she simply mustered all the enthusiasm she could. "I was out collected supplies. Nothing fancy. Just trying to make the apartment a bit nicer. Ideal as it is for my purposes, it is a bit of a shit hole."

Finally taking note of her arrival, the man who worked at the stand (entirely generic, Kaori had no hope of memorizing a single feature) finally noticed her and made his way over and asked what she would like.

"You appear busy, so whatever isn't too much hassle. You can take as long as you like but make it to go." She waved him off, hoping to continue her conversation with the much more interesting individual. "What about you, do any interesting missions lately? I bet someone as tough as you is always doing something awesome. I always get stuck with some boring a... uh, less than ideal job."

She removed a cigarette from the box tuck into her boot and lit it up with a match. The man next to her looked somewhat offended, and this caused her to grin slightly. She got the inaapropriated reaction under control fast enough with a deep drag of the cigarette, feeling the smoke fill her lungs as she awaited a response.

(Exit Due to Missing the activity check)