Log; Complete

[violentflutist.livejournal.com]

When; November 26th, evening
Rating; PG
Characters; Tayuya {violentflutist} & Greed {so_very_greedy}
Summary; Greed takes Tayuya out to dinner after he lost his bet and made her angry, (and quite possibly extremely jealous).
Log;
Greed escorted Tayuya into the tastefully lit sushi bar, the host motioning them to the reserved booth. Greed took his seat on the downy cushion and opened up a menu, sliding another in front of Tayuya's seat.

"So, I hope you've been well?"

His attention was distracted for a moment by the massive fishtank that took up one of the walls.

Tayuya tried not to look too distracted by the classiness of the restaurant. It wasn't often that she went to places considered "ritzy" or "fancy", and the few times she had been she had also been on missions. That didn't leave much time for looking around or dressing to the occasion, which she had, not that she would ever let anyone know she had actually though about what to wear.

“I've been well enough. Had a scuffle, but came out on top, so good." She caught sight of what he was looking at, taking a moment before tearing her gaze away. "Yourself?"

He turned back to her and shrugged.

"Ah, you know me. Kickin' up the dust and trying to survive."

He ordered a few large, piping hot bottles of sake and a few large servings of the chef's choice. A variety of sample platter.

"So...I found Rangiku. Got her safely away and back to the city. She was hurt pretty bad."

The menu was handed back to the waiter, who awaited Tayuya's order.

Tayuya grimaced, looking at the menu. She didn't even know what half of the stuff was, so she settled for asking only for an extra order of crab legs. Those seemed nice.

"Heh, I wondered when the bi-" Giving a small sigh, she amended that sentence. "When the woman would be found." Didn't need to get into another argument over other women already.

He caught the small slip, but let it slide this time. He really wasn't in the mood to argue either. He shifted around the different bottles and slips of paper on the table. Sake trays were poured for them both and slid to the side.

"In any case, I'm glad to know you're well. I don't like when the people important to me get hurt. I kinda' take it as a personal offence, ya' know?"

Greed leaned back on his cushion and put his arms behind his head.

"I'm sorry about losin' the bet, though," he said, looking actually apologetic for once.

"..." Tayuya leaned forward in her seat, propping her chin on her hands. "I'm not gonna let you try again." She said with a sigh.

"It's too stressful. And impossible." Shrugging, she reached over for her cup and held it loosely, taking a sip.

"Let's just say..." She put a thoughtful expression on her face, staring off past him for a few minutes before finishing. "If it happens, it happens, huh?"

"Works for me," he said, smiling and waving to the waiters. Hot sake, coming down the pipe! He gladly took the bottles from the waiter's tray and placed them out, pouring a small glass for himself and offering her some.

"You want? It'll cure what ails ya'."

"I thought so." Tayuya couldn't help but smirk. This was Greed, after all. Proffering her cup for a fill, she looked him over. Yeah, same old Greed.

"Besides, it's hard enough for me to sneak out to go to dinner, let alone to sneak out to do anything else. When I'm not on guard duty I'm with fucking Kabuto." The man's name was spat out in a distasteful manner.

He gladly poured her a full cup and topped off his own again.

"He has you working that much? There has to be a limited amount of important things to really do in this place, after all."

He spotted the first tray coming out with her order of crab legs and two bowls of miso soup. The trays were eagerly intercepted by him and placed down.

"This place is great. Fast service, top quality. Hard to find that combination."

“I’m usually doing something. However stupid.” Tayuya took a sip of her drink. “Surveillance, recon, background checks, training, research, experiments, and the list goes on.”

“I can’t say I know much about restaurants.” She reached for the soup, blowing gently on the surface to move the steam before tasting it, nodding her approval. “The only times I’ve gone out to eat have been with you. And that one time with Kabuto and Shizune.” Tayuya couldn’t help but smirk at the thought of those two.

"Well, I think no one should live without trying to expand their tastes. It sucks that he works you like that. There should be a ninja union or somethin'. The way you guys govern is too closed off. If all the ninja's got together, you'd be a REAL force. You could take over countries instead of taking orders."

He gently sipped his soup for a moment, noticing her smirk.

"Ya' know, I've never gotten the whole holding grudges thing. I tend to just beat the guy/thing/monsters senseless, then get over it. I can break a guy's nose and still have a beer with him afterwards. I've noticed girls tend to carry things a lot longer."

"Well, Otogakure is a small ninja country." Tayuya admitted. "Until Orochimaru-sama takes over, anyway. The five major countries, the ones with Kages, have veritable ninja armies, like you're talking about." She stirred her soup as she spoke, occasionally gesturing with the spoon.

"As for grudges... I've been called something of a vindictive bitch, so I suppose it's just true. I hate people. It's what I do." She gave a shrug, taking another sip of her soup, nodding as she did so. It really was quite good.

"Well, that fact that it has such a bad rep isn't exactly conducive to getting new people. It tends to be hard when anyone trying to get in is worried about getting kidnapped or experimented on."

A large platter of various sushi arrived at the table. They were placed down and small holding plates were put before each of them.

"I took the liberty of getting some for us both. A lot of good samplers."

He dipped some wasabi into his sauce bowl and mixed it around.

"Don't you think it would be easier to live without feelin' like that? Sounds like a buncha' stress, to me."

"The sound ninja, you may have noticed, aren't society's pick of the litter." It was a bit of an insult to herself, but she'd never been a reputable person.
"They're drawn to Orochimaru-sama because he offers them a place to belong." She got that much, and an inkling of why she herself followed him. The food looked damn good, and she certainly was hungry, having subsisted on quick meals while on guard duty.

"What else would I do?" She asked, eyeing the plate and trying to decide on what to go for first. "I'm a ninja. I kill people. What else is there?"

"I'm not sayin' being a ninja is wrong. It sounds pretty damned cool, really. Wish I knew cool tricks like that. You have to understand, my basic method of attack is "hit it until it breaks." Very simplistic."

He dips some eel sashimi in and pops it into his mouth.

"Mmm! Delicious...Is it really better to belong to a tyrant than to belong to no one? I came from that situation. The Old Man was always tellin' us what to do. Yap, yap, yap, do this, do that, destroy this, silence that, keep these guys in line, ect. I got sick of it. I wanted something greater than that."

He finishes his soup and follows up with a few pieces of salmon on rice, easily chomping them down.

"Ah well, guess it's somethin' you have to be human to understand. I've never really been much of a follower."

"I follow for my own gains." She finally selected a cucumber roll, nibbling warily before it passed inspection and she finished it off.

"You were lucky, you were born with all that power. If I had power like you I sure as hell wouldn't be a follower." Her fingers danced in mid-air in indecision before narrowing in on a piece of shrimp.

"I need power, more power than I have right now, and Orochimaru-sama can provide that." Chewing, she turned her head and raised her long hair, revealing the curse seal on the nape of her neck.

"This is the key to power. If I keep following orders well, he said he'll give it an... 'upgrade' of sorts." Tayuya grinned. "More power."

"There any downsides?"

He devoured another few pieces of sashimi and downed half a bottle of sake.

"I can't say I recognize the mark. I have one of my own though."

Greed held out his left hand, showing the ouroboros seal on top of it.

"Sure there are." Tayuya wiped her hands briskly on a napkin in her lap before reaching across the table to grab his hand, turning it over in her own, checking, before looking at the seal again.

"If I stay in my curse seal form for too long I could die. The stress on the body is pretty bad, so for a little while after I change back I'm a little weak." She continued to speak as she traced the ouroboros with one finger, examining.

"And if I try to push my chakra limits I run the risk of the seal going out of control."

"Man, that's a big downside," he said, trying repress a grin at feeling her hands, "Almost depressin'."

He scarfed down a few more rolls, sampling the fatty tuna, before wiping his mouth and continuing.

"I don't really know what mine DOES, per say, but I get the meaning of it. Our kind are alchemical aberrations, or so I'm told. We shouldn't exist. That's one reason we can't breed, or do alchemy, or have souls of our own. Most living things follow the natural cycle. Birth, life, death. We defy the natural order just by existing. We exist outside of it. We are the snake, unchanging, ever-eating it's own tail. It's not just the regeneration. We NEVER change. If I cut my hair, it will shift back to this exact design and length."

Releasing his hand, Tayuya leaned back into her seat, thoughfully snapping a crab leg and eating the meat inside.

"But you do exist." She mentioned, waving the broken leg around as she spoke. "And I suppose not changing isn't too bad, I mean, hell, I won't be doing much growing anytime soon." She scowled, looking down at herself.

"Dying sort of stunts your growth. I'd planned on being taller than this."

"But it's an existence meant for servitude. The only way we come about it because a human is powerful enough to create us for his own needs."

He finished a few more portions and motioned with his finger to a waiter. After whispering something to him, the man nodded and hastily retreated to the back.

"Still, like I said, I defied that fate. I knew I'd never get everything I wanted working for Father. As for the not growing...Well, that is pretty unofortunate. I'm sure you'd grow into a pretty hot babe. Have you ever considered that there might be a way to get back to life? Ever researched it?"

Tayuya raised an eyebrow skeptically when the waiter was called, but she didn't ask.

"Get back to life?" She put down the crab leg and reached for another. "I don't know... I guess there could be a way." She would defnitely have to look into that later.

"As for growing, well, I'm not even sure how old I am now, so I guess that'd be nice." She shrugged. Living on the streets one lost track of time, of birthdays and the like. Kabuto had estimated her age for her, but then again, ninja didn't rely on that number very much. She'd completed her first kill at around eight, after all.

"Heh, you implying I'm not good enough looking now?" She was teasing though, the tone evident in her voice.

"Well, in any case, I'm definitely lookin' forward to it. You're one of a few people who got dealt a raw deal here. If I can find an answer, I'll definitely share it. I take care of the people that are important to me."

He gently reached over and grasped her hand, pressing his lips against the top of it.

"And I would never call you anything less than beautiful. In either form."

Tayuya scowled, averting her gaze and muttering. "Flatterer." That was not a blush on her cheeks. She did not blush. She was trying desperately to remember that she was still kind of mad at him. But it wasn't really working. Looking for something to say, she finally came up with something.

"What'd you tell the waiter?"

"You know it," he said, smiling.

He continued to hold the hand and talked to her. A menu was slid to her with his other hand. The page was opened to a spread of a delicious concoction that looked like a squared block of fried dough.

"This is called fried cheesecake. It's a house special. Cheesecake, breaded and fried, and served up with chocolate sauce on it! It's like biting in heaven itself!"

Greed didn't seem to realize he was almost standing off his seat with excitement. He noticed his own theatrics eventually and sat back down.

"THAT is what I ordered from the waiter."

She couldn't help but laugh at the dramatics, trying to muffle a snicker behind her other hand. Looking at the dessert, Tayuya thought about it.

"I don't think I've ever had cheesecake..." She mentioned, tapping the picture with her index finger. "If it's like heaven, I suppose it should taste like the City. Since this is sort of my afterlife, hmm?"

He shrugged and settled again.

"Well, some people may come here after death, but this is definitely NOT heaven. I'm not 100% sure such a place exists, and if it does I can't reach it. Once my last life is burnt out, I just cease to be."

A sweet, strong smell wafted in as the waiter brought in a large tray, the cheescake was there with a small dish of chocolate sauce and some green tea ice cream.

"Hot damn! Thanks, pal!"

He slapped the waiter on the back hard enough to make him stumble, then passed her a fork.

"Let's dig into this sucker!"

Covering a snort of further laugher with her hand, Tayuya took the offered fork, eyeing the dessert curiously. She approached it from the side, cautiously poking at the side with the prongs as if it might attack if provoked. But it seemed to pass whatever test she was administering, because she quickly sectioned off and piece and put it in her mouth. Moments passed. She chewed thoughtfully.

"Hot damn." She finally said. "That is good!"

"Ha ha! I told ya'!"

He pounded the table for emphasis and pounded down another bottle of sake, then snatched a bite of the cake. Several patrons around them looked at the spectacle, catching his eyes.

"What the fuck are you all lookin' at? Am I free show? Get your eyes back to your food."

Not wishing to anger the sharp-toothed ruffian taking up residence across from them, the patrons quickly resumed eating. Greed took a few more bites.

"Anyway, like I said, this stuff is good. Man, there's all sorts of places we can go in your off-time."

Tayuya was trying to stop laughing and eat part of the cake at the same time, which was a bad combination, seeing as she had a close call with a choking incident. But she thumped her chest a few times with her fist, nodding as she did so. Stupid cake. Pausing to take a drink, she tried to keep count of how many she'd had. Stupid alcohol.

"Looks like I'm going to be sneaking out a hell of a lot in the near future." She smirked. "What sort of places you have in mind?"

"Well, there's still a shit load of bars and restaurants, a few clubs, the shopping district, vacations to the beach, that sort of thing. Hell, I'm also thinkin' of expanding the hot spring."

He gave a motion to the waiter to bring the check, then topped off both of their cups.

"Gotta say, this has been a nice night, Tayuya."

After sliding her cup back to her he looked her in the eyes.

"What about you? There anywhere you want to visit while we still have free time? Just name it."

Smiling, she downed the cup, thinking. She wanted to stay out, she figured she deserved it after guarding and fighting that shinigami woman... but she didn't want to get caught either. That would bode well for no one.

"Nnn... I'm going to have to go..." She said regretfully. "And hope Orochimaru-sama doesn't smell alcohol on me."

"If you say so."

He ran to the main table and paid for their food in cash, then returned to escort her outside. He stopped with her just outside the door.

"I had a great time with ya'. Tell me next time you wanna' to get together."

He looked around to make sure no one was watching and leaned down to kiss her goodnight.

"Anytime I can sneak out." She said, having to crane her neck back a bit, (he really was tall). She allowed the kiss to linger, but no longer than a few moments. She was still mad after all. ... Not to mention that list under her pillow that had women's names on it. But no matter.

"See you around, Greed." And she was gone.