Revisiting the Basics

After serving as a doctor for the Emporium for a fair amount of time, the skills that he developed as a ninja has dwindled over time. He isn't completely weak, but he's gone rough around the edges, crude one would say. His job at the Emporium didn't offer a lot of free days due to the heavy workload, mainly because of the ongoing war but when the intention was made clear that he wanted to take a day or two off, his fellow workers in the hospital were more than happy to cover him. He took that opportunity to take the day off and train himself.

There wasn't any official training grounds, but there's a place where no one visits, a large plain space that doesn't often get many visitors. One or two people usually come along but they usually do so for privacy, for one reason or another... as soon as they see someone already occupying the space, they tend to leave and thanks to this, Kureji has been training in peace.

He spent the time training some of his physical prowess, with his chakra enhancement in play... finely tuned chakra control sent to parts of the body for enhanced body prowess, shoulders for strength was a main focus for him but he also experimented with other parts of his body.

---

WC: 228
Chakra Enhancement - 150 WC

A place where no one visits. If only. There were always those who would be perceptive enough to take notice of people and places, especially those who tried not to be seen. Ikomiki was one of such people, and that habit of hers would allow her to catch wind of something very interesting indeed. Kureji had been training alone and in peace, but not anymore. A familiar cat girl had approached, and rather than being driven away as all the others did by Kureji already occupying the territory she would seem emboldened by his presence.

Of course, she had been doing some training as well. Ultimately she was here for the same reason as him. Her skills needed to be honed, or else they would end up decaying and fading away into nothingness.  She had already had enough of that, living that sort of lazy life at the Uchiha Clan compound. No more. She wanted to hunt something and feel alive again.

As the male practiced his chakra control one mischievous cat would approach from behind, her footsteps completely silent. It was a trick she had learned from Akihiro- Apparently some skill from Kirigakure. The real trick was that there wasn’t one, but two of her now. Split into two, it would be as though there were twins approaching Kureji. Of course, as they reached his immediate location they would merge back together into a single girl, but the effect was still there. At a glance it wasn’t anything more impressive than a simple clone technique, but the actual specifics of it were much more complicated.

She would tap on his shoulder from behind as he did his chakra exercises, standing up on her tiptoes.

“Kureji.” Ikomiki spoke in a half-whisper, and she would jab a finger into the side of his abdomen. “You’ve turned fat.”


[WC 306: Training Fission Technique]

He blissfully trained away and his perception wasn't quite high enough to hear the sneaky catgirl coming up from behind him. It wasn't until that whisper came and even then, his reflexes weren't fast enough. The jab was quick before he could even turn around, resulting in him spouting "oof!", he turned around to finally notice the familiar face... it was hard to tell if she's grown or not, since his times with her were like a bad memory, something he wanted to repress. It wasn't bad to see her, but he wasn't thrilled either. "Why do you think I'm training?" he took that insult quite literally.

"I see you're as annoying as ever, though." his own insult back at her. He wasn't fast enough to notice there were two of her, so it's as if the jutsu never happened in his perception. That was something he seriously needed to practice. "I thought you'd be a scavenger in the war, since you like taking from the helpless." he thought back at the time when he was in a hospital and she wanted to take all his medication, which just led down to a series of weird encounters with her.

With a bit of pain from that jab, he decided to light up his hand with healing chakra, it wasn't a serious injury but it was an annoyance for his nerves and he placed the hand at the exact spot she jabbed her. "Are you here to actually train, or to annoy me?" he's guessing that she'll say both to that.

WC: 291
Mystical Palm - 200 WC

She rolled from her toes to the balls of her heels, swaying back and forth a bit. The reaction he had given was satisfying. She missed having Kureji around. He was sort of like a big mouse that she could play with forever without worrying about it accidentally dying before she was finished with it. Of course, that wasn’t a very flattering comparison to make so Ikomiki kept it to herself, but she couldn’t help but appreciate the similarities now while face to face with him again.

“I’m here to train too. I saw you though, so I thought it would be fun to follow you.” She would turn, looking behind her shoulder for a second. Talking about following him made her wonder now if she had been followed too. “It has been fun so far.”

Another flood of chakra would spread throughout her system. It was invisible to an onlooker, but all the techniques she had been learning recently had made her more and more willing to experiement. All the Doton chakra flowing around her system made her much lighter, although standing still like this it was impossible to tell the different. It wasn’t as though he could weigh her with a glance. Really, it was just some strange insecurity after calling him fat, she was beginning to wonder if she had done a good enough job keeping in shape or not.

“I was thinking about scagenging in the war. It seems like it’d be fun to pick off the losers and eat whatever was left over. I’ve been too lazy lately for that sort of thing, but I want to change. It’d be fun to kill things again.”

Living at the Uchiha Clan compound had changed her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had to hunt for her meals and kill them with her own hands. Truly a life of luxury.

[WC 314 - Training Earth Release: Ultra-Light-Weight Rock Technique]

He'd hope that she would rub off his insult as a joke, but the fact she so shamelessly accepted it was a bit worrying to him, especially since the said victims of the war are people in the very hospital he's working at. The morals behind it had hit him, but in the end... she wasn't wrong either, it's being pragmatic, but that's a thought he wouldn't share. "I have to heal those same losers at the hospital, working as a doctor for this place." he would share that part at least, to give the hint it might be a touchy subject for him.

When the jabbing came to mind, he thought about using a defence so that no one could get the jump on him like that again... which was a good point brought by Iko, even if it wasn't her intention. With a few handseals, his skin started to slightly blacken, as if it were hardened. It could be something that he can use as a means to repel off damage like that in the meantime. "Try and jab me again." he asked, he'd be curious to see if she would be ballsy enough.

WC: 204
Earth Spear - 200 WC

“Oh. That must be why you smell like a loser. It happened after healing all of them.”

The quip came naturally, the fact that it was a touchy subject completely flying over Ikomiki’s head. Talking about how he smelled woke up something in her lizard brain though, and she would immediately lean in and take a few sniffs of Kureji’s chest before leaning back again. Just to confirm.

Of course, as the invitation came to jab him again she would visibly see his skin harden and the handseals that he made. She had been watching the entire time, and it wasn’t as if she was stupid. She knew this technique and could use it herself. That gave her the proper information on how to counter it as well. Although with Kureji she was sure to go for overkill.

She would make some handseals herself. A bit of mist would release from her mouth, spreading into the area around them both. Just enough to cover the area, and then she would jab him again. The mist that she had released was a crazy technique called Kirisame, a special jutsu that negated ninjutsu in the area. That would leave Kureji defenseless, and her fingers would dig deep into his stomach this time in an even more brutal jab. She used all the force she could muster, basically punching him this time now that he asked her to do it. The fact that she used an S-Rank technique that was super secret and exclusive to a foreign village was probably a stupid idea and super unnecessary, but Ikomiki couldn’t help but pull off all the stops when bullying Kureji.

“Was that good enough? I think I can do it even harder if you want me to again. I didn’t take you for the type who liked to be beaten up though. I’ll have to remember that.”

[WC 305 - Training Kirisame]

She knew a bit of water jutsu, that was no concern to him when she started to use her own handseals. It's when his armour got suddenly dissolved, the surprise came to him and with his lack of reflexes kicking in once more, that jab felt like a blur and once again, his painful groan was louder compared to the last one. His hand of healing was quick to go back to the same spot that he was jabbed, although it was longer this time. A slight irritated face was painted on him, and a part of him wanted to unleash what he actually had on her, but he knew fighting in the Emporium is extremely foolish, guards would be onto him fast.

"I tend to heal wounds, not cause them or enjoy them... I see your head still isn't in the right place." he secretly hoped that maybe, just maybe... there was something different about her, maybe she developed better as a more tolerable person, but she's a literal carbon copy of the person that she was years ago. He prepared a fist full of blue chakra, something that enhanced his strength immensely... the thought was entertaining to punch her with full force with this technique, but he held back, he knew how to hold back unlike her.

WC: 222
Chakra Enhanced Strength - 200 WC

She had hit him but in her hubris she hadn’t been prepared to be hit as well. Even with all her force put behind the punch she wasn’t really all that strong- Not any more than the average person at least. Ikomiki had none of that supernatural strength that some other shinobi did, which was maybe a bit odd considering her bloodline as an Otsutsuki. Judging by Kureji’s reaction though he didn’t have any sort of supernatural endurance either. Judging by his frail, nerdy frame he probably wasn’t too strong either- At least that was what she would have thought. Chakra enhanced strength changed everything, and Ikomiki would end up decked in the face- Or at least she would have if he hadn’t held back. She had been too close and too unprepared to dodge, so there would have been nothing she would have been able to do. Of course she had no idea he was using chakra enhanced strength, so rather than fearing the punch like she should of Ikomiki would only feel a bit sorry for him.

“My head is exactly where it should be. On my shoulders.” It was a bit too literal to be a joke, more that Ikomiki just didn’t understand the metaphor involved.

Still, she had a grin on her face. Half of her imagined using some other powerful jutsu- Like bringing up massive walls of earth to crush him like a little ant. It was funny to imagine even if she would never dare to actually go that far. She didn’t want to ever actually seriously injure Kureji to the point where they couldn’t play together anymore after.

“When are you getting involved in the war? Or are you just going to stay in hospitals taking care of people who were actually there?” She didn’t have much room to talk, having not taken any part in it either so far, but that didn’t stop her from talking more shit. “Maybe after I go you can heal me in a hospital room. It’ll be like when we met.”

[WC 344 - Training Earth Release: Sandwich Technique]

He could see a few reasons for people joining the war, patriotism, glory, or sick pleasure in ending the lives of others, but none interested him in any sense to join the war. He had no reason to, unlike her who openly admitted she'd join just to scavenge the remains of the dead. "I already see enough at the hospital, I don't need to see the cause of those horrors." the other day, he had a break from the hospital, a few minutes to himself and the suffering in that place haunted him. That's what he was really scared of by the war, logical reasoning aside to not join it.

"Jokes aside, I hope it doesn't come to that." and although he didn't commit to the fury just a few seconds ago of wanting to hit her, he'd at least give it a shot of getting a hit in. He focused his chakra just like before but with a lot more precision compared to the last time, he aimed a finger towards her and at the last second, blue chakra emitted at the fingertip and with a light tap, he flicked her shoulder with it. He could feel his finger go slowly red from how hard it had hit, but it was satisfactory enough.

"You know what Akihiro has been up to these days? I haven't really heard much from him." his mentor, he had mixed feelings about him but nonetheless, he only hoped he was doing just as well with all the war nonsense going on. It made him also think of Taiga, and where she's gone off to. It felt like everything changed when the war hit and anything he had going for him was gone in the blink of an eye. He may not have the highest opinion of Ikomiki, but he's still glad to see her in the sense that she's apart of his past, before the war happened.

WC: 333
Chakra Enhanced Strength Version Two - 300 WC

She hadn’t been prepared for it, just like before. Part of her didn’t believe that Kureji would actually hit her. Ikomiki was only vaguely aware of the rules of this location, but she knew enough to get the general sense that fighting or any form of combat was strictly prohibited. So when he flicked her shoulder she hadn’t thought anything of it. Of course with the force that he flicked her with she would be sent immediately to the floor, falling on her ass from both being utterly unprepared and the actual strength behind the flick. Kureji wasn’t nearly that physically strong so there must have been some sort of chakra trick behind it. Analyzing things when she was kicked to the ground though was difficult so all Ikomiki could muster at the moment was indignation and shock. If she had known what was coming and had the time to brace herself she probably would have remained standing on her feet. Really she wasn’t hurt, maybe there would be a little bruise, so it was mainly surprise. Although that wouldn’t stop her from grumily muttering to herself as she got back up to her feet.

She had the desire to respond even though she really knew she shouldn’t. Not just because the rules but also because continuously escalating between the two of them wouldn’t end well for either of them. That, and she didn’t really want to hurt Kureji. Or at least not hurt him anymore than she normally did. Mental images of her summoning the power of her new bloodline came to mind though. Using trees and roots to bind Kureji in place and hold him down so she could teach him a lesson… She was perfectly capable of it, and her chakra was already flaring, but she decided against it.

“I don’t know. I think he’s gotten fat and lazy like you. He didn’t have any excuse though, unlike you.” She rubbed at her back a bit. “I think he’s with his family, or something. Uchiha. It’s hard to know when it’s so hard to get in touch with him.”

“I miss him.” She tilted her head back, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. “I missed you too. I’m glad that I followed you in here.”

[WC: 363 Training Wood Release Secret Technique: Nativity of a World of Trees]

When she got sent back from that simple flick infused with chakra, he looked at his own finger in disbelief. It would make up for his petty strength if he can use his own chakra to enhance it like that. A face of worry was evident on him as he checked to see if Ikomiki was actually okay, and the shoulder might've been slightly bruised at best, nothing more.

When he could move past the petty insults and her rather blunt behaviour, she's not a bad person to hang around with. He just needs to get a better tolerance for her behaviour mostly. "I'm not that fat." he said back, and it even made him look down on his own frame, making him question it. He's not physically gifted, but he's not fragile either... at least, not too fragile. That's something he needs to get better in, but there are other aspects that he's focusing on at the moment. "Remember what happened back in Kirigakure? I bet you had the time of your life with that." that was an interesting time, and getting arrested wasn't fun for him but looking back at it, it is a funny thought with how it all happened.

"Miss bullying me, or you actually miss me?" he wasn't sure why he took her behaviour as much as he did, if some part of him actually enjoyed it or he's just that submissive. Then again, fighting isn't allowed in this place. He thought about that flick and imagined how much it would do with a full-fledged punch. The only worry is keeping his opponent in place, and he thought of a Earth Technique that would do just the trick, but of course, it's in his imagination. He didn't want to mess up the place with earth jutsu.

WC: 315
Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld - 250 WC

Ikomiki stared at him blankly. The urge to reply with a simple ‘yes’ in response to his question was strong. There was no distinction between missing bullying him and just missing him in her mind- Both were true. Being here and being able to engage in it again was exciting in a special sort of way. Bullying other people wasn’t nearly as fun as it was when she was able to bully Kureji. He was special like that. Even when she had been tearing apart that troublesome Senju boy from Konoha she wasn’t having nearly as much fun as when she was screwing around with Kureji and making him the butt of her jokes.

“I do remember what happened back in Kirigakure. You exposed yourself to me like a pervert and got arrested.” She nodded, ignoring the question he asked at the end. “It was very amusing, after recovering from the mental scars and trauma of seeing you naked. It’s surprising they let a sex offender like you off the hook so easily.”

She tilted her head to the side. There was another Ikomiki off to the far distance, and she caught wind of them staring. From dozens of meters away Ikomiki would stare back, until the other would break eye contact and leave. She had been messing around with clone techniques earlier, which is why Kureji might have been seeing double when she first approached. Of course, the Ikomiki talking to him was the real one.

“I wish he would call us all together to do something again. Even if you’re fine being in hospitals, I want more excitement. Plus, I’m sick of just eating catfood. It was nice at first but it’s getting boring.”

[WC 293; Training Wood Clone Technique]

He kept his cool with her, and felt the need to explain why that was caused in the first place. "Yeah, cause you kept thinking that I had no balls, that's what you get for bullying me about that." it brought a smile to his face that she managed to scar her with that, temptation arised to do it again, but having a sex offender reputation in the Emporium would be one of the stupidest things he could do, and he wasn't going to do that again, he learned his lesson the first time. "We just have to wait, he'll get to us when he can." Akihiro often went on and off in his bursts of activity, but he can only guess the man had his reasons for going away like that sometimes and it's not his place to question.

"Then why not get some normal food? I could treat you to a lunch if you're up for it." it sounds like she's involved with Mockingbird as much as he is, if Akihiro were to indeed call them up at some point, good relations were needed and he'd rather not be the butt of her jokes all the time. Another technique came in mind amidst in the conversation, as he's still in the training mindset, using his chakra enhanced strength to smash the ground, possibly creating a crater. He can already imagine it being slow, but the force of the blast would be quite considerable in some cases.

WC: 256
Cherry Blossom Tearing Impact - 200 WC

She rolled her eyes. Apparently he didn’t pick up on the sarcasm she had in her voice when she mentioned that she was scarred and traumatized. The way he was smiling now was way too smug but she would let it pass for now. There wasn’t much she could do anyway. Maybe it would be better for her to let him think that he was winning. Even if it made her roll her eyes that smug look of his was a little cute. Cute in the “I wanna wipe that smile off his face” sort of way, at least. She would remember this and have lots of fun when bullying him later.

Her attention drifted at the mention of ‘normal food’. Her thoughts were disrupted and instantly she changed her stance from something casual to standing alert. For someone who had most of their meals either fed to them as catfood or through hunting wild animals like little birds the offer of being fed food wasn’t something she was going to pass up. Of course there were all her clones too now… A truly massive number of wood clones were running around the emporium at this point, all of them as hungry as the original Ikomiki- Wisely she dispersed them all on that note. Or at least most of them. She wasn’t going to compromise and be forced to share a meal with some of her own clones, and she knew if she just let them run around free that they would try to swipe some food from her.

“Food? Yes.” As if that answered everything. “I’m hungry. If I knew you had some I’d have forced you to give it to me by now.” Maybe the concept of human restaurants and grocery stores were still a little foreign to her.

[WC 301 - Training Multi Wood Clone Technique]

It looked like that offer got her attention, but he wasn't sure if she actually knew what he meant by the offer of it. "I meant we go to a restaurant, you know... pay people to make the food for us?" a part of him was connecting a few dots together, with how she mentioned about eating people earlier and her belief into thinking that he has some on his person. It looks like he'll have to educate her a bit on the way if she's really that oblivious to it... and it only made him think of what she had to rely on for food the past few years.

"Come on then, I'll show you." the Emporium wasn't exactly a luxurious place, so they shouldn't expect fancy restaurants, but Kureji knew that were a few places to eat nonetheless, maybe a ramen shop... nice and simple for a beginner like her, and the ramen can be mixed with almost anything. "What have you been eating in the past then?" now he was really curious. He thought it'd be good to ask as they were on their way.

“I’ve been eating mostly cat food. I just said that. Didn’t I?” Silly Kureji. Didn’t he know what cats ate? Her diet was pretty typical as far as an outdoor house cat was. Even when she was being fed she still hunted and killed a good deal of outdoor pests though just for fun. There was no beating instinct. She knew what a restaurant was in the sense that she knew there were certain types of buildings that were restaurants, but the concept of ordering food was beyond her comprehension. Being able to get food without ‘working’ for it was an impossible to understand concept, and so even during her time living in human cities she remained oblivious.

She would nod and follow Kureji, despite her better judgement, on the promise of food. Other girls probably would have been lead to their demise in a scenario like this, lured out to follow a strange man with a history of sex crimes, but Ikomiki was confident she could handle herself.

“Mostly just those brown crunchy things… I don’t get the good stuff too often. If not that I usually just look for birds or squirrels…” Another oddity was that her diet basically was one hundred percent meat. Strange for a human, but not that odd for a feline.

Brown crunch things... cockroaches? the only thing he can imagine is their bones cracking from when Iko would try to eat them. The thought was disgusting, and it visibly gave him a cringe as he shivered his body from the mere thought, but he tried to make it gross him out too much. He didn't want to ruin his appetite. "Yeah, you need some decent food then." he wasn't sure what kind of environment she grew up in, but with her eating habits and her eccentric behaviour, it's obvious that it wasn't a normal environment. He felt obligated to try and normalise her before she runs into Akihiro again.

They were quick to come across a ramen shop, enclosed and small in space but rather empty, perfect for the two of them. The man behind the counter was quick to notice them, and Kureji got his order in pretty fast. "Ramen, with Karaage please." there were a few meats that he liked, only a handful, but he always found karaage to be nice on the mouth, hot and yet delicious in the aftertaste... with ramen on the side, it felt perfect for him. There was a menu that Ikomiki could read, he could only hope that she could read and pick whatever she liked... and that she's not greedy with him paying for it.

It was obvious that she was out of her element by the way she tensed up the moment they entered the restaurant. Her cat ears were folded flat to her head, making them almost indistinguishable from her hair. The place was empty, but she couldn’t help but feel apprehensive about the strange man behind the counter and the strange formal setting they had suddenly walked into. In nature the only rules were natural law, so having these strange rules of etiquette suddenly bearing down on her felt unbearably oppressive. Immediately she had the desire to flip over tables and smash glass, although she would hold back on that for now.

Sitting across from Kureji she would be oblivious. Just as he had feared Ikomiki truly couldn’t read. She at least recognized what language was and the fact that there was writing on the menu but she would only respond blankly to it. After staring down at it for a few seconds she would look over at Kureji.

“I can’t read.” It was stating the obvious, but with a blank and deadpan face.

Out of all the skills to not have, reading is something that she needs to have. He really is starting to question how she's gotten this far in life, either by stupid luck or she's that strong in some way to survive. If she had some amount of power, it'd make sense as to why she's in Mockingbird. He knew that Akihiro wouldn't intentionally let someone like her in Mockingbird unless it was for a good reason, and if not for intelligence, it must be some power behind her.

"You strike me as a meat eater, so what do you like on that front? chicken, pork? beef?" there were surely one or two options around that and once she said her poison, they can get around to eating. In the meantime, the guy behind the counter was already getting to Kureji's order. It wasn't quite done yet and it'll take a bit for it to get done anyway. His full focus is getting Iko what she wants.

Of the three animals listed she had only ever had the opportunity to eat one of them- That being chicken. They were small little things, at least compared to her, so it was easy to sneak into where humans kept them locked up and snatch a few. They were pretty fat too, so if you ignored the feathers they made for great meals. Soft, hollow bones too. Since they were birds it was great to just crunch their bones with her teeth. She knew what ‘pork’ and ‘beef’ were, but only in the sense that she had seen their butchered meat when occasionally spying in butcher shops. She wasn’t really sure what sort of animals they came from.

“Chicken. I like meat. The feathers are annoying though. It’s easy to choke on them.” The way her face scrunched up upon saying that made it clear she was speaking from personal experience.

He had to be patient... very patient to deal with her like this, it's not her fault for not knowing any better. "Don't worry about that, they're not going to serve it with feathers." he then turned over to the man behind the counter once more, who seemed focus on his order. "Could you prep up another Ramen bowl with Karaage please?" and with that, they were set. They simply had to wait. A part of him in hindsight made him feel like maybe they should've gone to a different place if this one wasn't so huge, but it'd be rude at this stage to think back at that decision now, he'd have to go through with it.

"It's a pretty simple meal, I think you'll like it." it's a weird habit with himself, he never liked the sophisticated dishes or foods, he never liked too many flavours in his mouth and preferred it to be something dummied down easily and not something that'll explode his mouth. He doesn't mind a bit of spiciness, but he doesn't exclusively like it. "I'd ask what you like to eat, but..." she mentioned earlier, catfood, cockroaches and god knows what else. He'll have to introduce her to a new world, and he's not even the right person for it. "We'll just see if you like this first, and go from there."

In a foreign environment, out of her element, her personality did shift a bit. That is, that stream of insults that had been coming from her earlier were now completely absent. Maybe Kureji took note of it that she was a bit restrained compared to earlier- It was a lesson she took to heart in the Chunin Exams. She had acted rather ballsy, as natural as she ever did, when in the unfamiliar place that was the Kirigakure Chunin Exams. For all her talk and bluster it just resulted in her being struck down by the proctor in the first stage, suffering a wound over her chest that plagued her for the rest of the exams, along with technically being ‘failed’. She had learned her lesson to be more cautious in places you weren’t familiar with, and to people you weren’t familiar with.

Eventually the food would come, two steaming hot bowls placed down in front of the pair. It was clear from her eyes that Ikomiki’s attention was entirely on the bowl that was put down for her. Chicken was something she was familiar with, but soup, noodles, and fried chicken was something completely new. The only way she could recognize it all as ‘food’ was by the delicious way it smelled. Slowly she would lean down, sniffing at the edge of the bowl from a few inches away to ensure the steam wouldn’t flow into her nose directly. The smell was undeniably good but she couldn’t help but be cautious, especially with the steam rising from it. For someone so used to eating raw and scavenged food something so hot like this was undeniably suspicious.

The way she stared down to the bowl made it clear she wanted to eat but the heat was preventing her. Of course, it also came from her lack of understanding of utensils. Ikomiki had always just eaten with her hands and mouth up to this point, and the idea of just reaching her hand into that steaming bowl of hot liquid was a rather unappealing one.

"It's hot..." She would whisper, talking to herself under her breath.

Kureji had been so focused on his own meal that he forgot for a split second that Ikomiki isn't used to dining like this. It would awkward to any observers, but Kureji was quick to step up from his chair, rushing to the aid of the Iko as she looked bewildered at the karaage ramen bowl before her. "Okay, for starters... let's use the fork." chopsticks were an option, but a newbie like her would mess that up easily. He grabbed the metal utensil, putting the tips through the lines as a starting, somewhat twirling it around to get a good mix together in the fork. "It'll be hot like this, which is normal. You can wait for it to cool down a bit if you'd like, but eating these is a slow burn. You should take your time, otherwise you'll get a full stomach too fast." surely she could handle a bit of heat, passing along the fork back to her. "Give that a go."

In the meantime, he wanted to focus on his own food. He wanted to go slow like he said himself, but the karaage was appealing more than usual. He got the feeling that she would try to mimic how he did it, so he decided to use the fork in this case. He used the pointy ends to jab into the chicken, and with a light pull, more steam than usual came out of his bowl, but he managed to pull it out. He slightly blowed into it to cool it down and he finally put it into his mouth, his face clearly one of satisfaction as he chomped away.

He looked back to Ikomiki to see how she was doing, hopefully she's enjoying it as much as he is.

Too intimidated to progress forward, Ikomiki ironically had to rely on Kureji to help her. The fact that he was so willing to after all the abuse she put him through was perhaps telling of the unique quality of their relationship. She would watch carefully as he twirled the fork around in the bowl of ramen, catching up some of the karaage and the ramen noodles together in its prongs. As it was handed off to her she would continue to stare apprehensively, although less so than she just had been. For a moment she would wait, watching for a moment to see what he would do. Exactly as Kureji had predicted Ikomiki would attempt to mimic him, blowing on what was caught on her fork in the same way he did. Only after he put his first forkfull in his mouth would she move to do the same.

The moment it was in her mouth Ikomiki’s eyes would widen a bit. As a result of her wild lifestyle this was all foreign territory to her. Hot food, spices and seasoning, breaded food, noodles, broth- It was all as alien to her as she was to others. All of it being introduced to her together, all in the same moment, was a bit overwhelming. She had to struggle not to resist coughing it out for a moment, but that became extremely easy once her brain began to process what her tastebuds were telling her. The forkful would be pulled into her mouth and chewed with a ferocity that made it seem as though she had never eaten before in her life. Somewhat hastily she would continue those same actions learned through mimicry, stabbing her fork back into the bowl and taking another load of the contents back to further stuff her mouth before she had even finished her first.

“‘s mfud” She mumbled out with her mouth full in a stunning display of a lack of table manners. Juices from the broth streamed down her lips and chin in the process, making a bit of a mess of her as she continued to eat.

After one piece of the chicken, Kureji was only inclined to get more. Jab after jab, bite after bite, he got lost into the simple deliciousness that he forgot his own advice and didn't take the eating slowly, instead eating the karaage rather fast and now, the only thing is his bowl is a karaage-less ramen bowl. Regrettable, but that's what he got for not following his own advice. The man behind the counter looked at the two like they were weirdos, but Kureji didn't care about him, and it looked like Ikomiki didn't care either. They'd enjoy their food the way they want to, food manners or not.

"Take it easy with the fork, you don't want to jab your own tongue." he could see that she's practically stuffing herself now, he'll have to add it to the list to teach her about some table manners but for now, he would let her enjoy her first time in a place like this. A funny thought came to mind with how they're both looking, he waited for the moment that Ikomiki's mouth was full. He planned to shock her, to be completely out of context. "Hey... is this a date?" it wasn't a serious question, but the randomness of it was surely enough to make her choke on her food from the shock. If it got serious, he's strong enough to force the food out if she started choking, but with her constantly messing with him, he wanted to get his licks in and this was a prime opportunity.