Scene #9387: Fishing With Uncles

Owner	Pose
Natsuki Nuki	Sotenbori, Osaka, isn't quite the center of anything, of its nation or even home city - but it has the tallest building, a massive commercial complex that is dominated by club on the first few floors and then business offices and housing above. The Golden Caterpillar, visible anywhere in the city, is where one might expect Natsuki Nuki to hold court. And, it's true, she's most often there when she's in the area, deep in the offices in the tower above, but she is also a native daughter of Osaka prefecture and haunts the streets and sundry of the town. If one were taken to wandering through the perhaps-nostalgic streets of the river-fingered port city, by the waterside there were regularly uncles that had set up on the dockside and boardwalks, casting lines long out over the water, and sometimes there were people other than the cheap old bastards that would regularly cast a line out into the bay. Natsuki, wearing a black tank top and a pair of full break brown cargo pants with pockets at ankle and thigh, squats on an upturned bucket, minding a fishing rod nothing bites on. Contemplative, balancing an arm and elbow on one knee and slowly raking at her untied hair which falls in a mop about her head. Tiger-eared and front-of-a-serpent tailed, with a sleepy repose of second head sprawled in the setting sunlight, Natsuki idly stares out, contemplates, and gets her Fishing on. Osaka near sunset is a city of orange and purple and every color neon can produce, as lights come on and places open up. The bridges, normally alive, are full of traffic, as people in every kind of cloth traverse them. 'People', at least in the industrial area, involve various flavors of not-quite-humans still in the zeitgeist of clothes that hits a particular 2005 style. There are few cars, mostly boxy affairs, and far from the docks. Small Japanese trucks move in the nearer distance, shifting items off the docks in the eternal pulse of industry, but Natsuki? Natsuki is watching a sunset while nothing bites. It's a kind of ritual, and the sort of outing that provided a sort of office hours to the knowers out in the city.
White	White might not have originally come for fishing, herself, but in exploring and making her way through a city that was multiple layers of unfamiliar to her it isn't unsurprising she'd stumble across that quaint little spot eventually. Osaka is not only a place she'd never had reason to be or hold memories of, but fairly different from the Osaka of her own Japan! It makes for a novel experience in exploration, if she refrains from relying too much on the supernatural and keeps her eight-legged friends more or less to herself... Though a few of them skitter out here and there, to scope out views from places most people would have no reason to ever be. It gives her leads on where to go next without having to ask for directions, and in a predictable way it also lets her stick her fingers into Natsuki's business a little in the future... For only good reasons, surely. It's fairly serendipitous then that, having come here because Natsuki's nature made this version of Osaka inherently more interesting and unusual, White notices her having a calm moment of leisure even from afar. She pauses, considering whether it'd be rude to disrupt her or not, and eventually decides that Natsuki will probably tell her either way. It could be equally rude not to greet her while in town, after all. White isn't especially attuned to the expectations of moneylenders, mob bosses, or entrepraneurs of Natsuki's ilk, just that she's 'in charge' here, and that they're meant to be friendly. So, there's a brief sort of reliving of their previous interaction when White does finally approach Natsuki's dockside spot, striding into her blindspot (or, what would be one if not for her snake-tail probably) at first before pausing in thought, and stepping around alongside to squat down beside the Nue's bucket-seat of choice. She hasn't arrived with teleportation, just by foot, and it seems along the way she's gathered a small handful of food-skewers from various little establishments she's sampled along the way today. Only the latest one still has anything on it, two doughy spheres of takoyaki still straddling the middle as she holds its blunt end between two fingers and a thumb like it's a teacup. Quietly, maybe even a little more than usual, she asks "Any luck?"
Natsuki Nuki	There's a reason only the crusty uncles fish this way - it's more of a pass-time and maybe a cheap meal once in a while than any kind of sport. The river is clean enough, though there's a real impression that White lifts off of the situation that is restive in several ways. Of course, she's also right that Natsuki would simply tell her if she was unwanted or uninvited. There's nobody with a one-dot leaf pin on the lapel of their blazer and a shitty attitude to go with it to bouncer at White, no figure moves to intercept her, and Natsuki doesn't seem realize White's there overmuch. Without Kodoku - her tail - awake and active, Natsuki lingers for a good chunk of time just not perceiving White at all. She doesn't just hold her head the whole time, shifting on the bucket she sits on to drop arm low and gaze out at a ship coming into dock. Tiredly she tracks the silhouette, restive as she surveys, a window out into the ocean, and as she watches it pull into the port more fully, the turn of her head reveals the corner of White's arm and outfit and a surprised Natsuki turns with a soft 'haah?'. Doubletaking (in that her tail wakes up suddenly, alarmed and groggy, droopy noodle that for a moment is not at all sinister) Natsuki wipes a hand down her eyemasked face and then backwards, over herself. "No wonder I smelled Takoyaki. You've got good taste, but if you came for a fish -- I doubt anything bites. You don't always toss a line knowing you'll get lucky." This line in particular has nothing to show for it, but to the question on luck specifically the nue just smiles and rights head. "I usually win in the end, but I don't eat this way - it's just something to do that offers a snack every once in a while. Just sitting around isn't my speed anyway - it's better to be doing something. Anything." "Right?" She asks. It hangs as the only question Natsuki returns.
White	"Mhm." White answers the counter-question, slightly nodding and taking a moment to get a nibble out of her takoyaki; she's already pushing the limits of her appetite today, but it's good enough to keep trying to pick at it for a while yet even as it becomes cooler. Her head turns slightly, this way or that as she tracks individual fish with her closed eyes, but it's decidedly more like a form of birdwatching than any intent on catching one. It's bad to waste food, and it's not like she can't understand the act of fruitlessly fishing for its own sake. In the moment when Kodoku is still waking, but Natsuki has noticed her, she smoothly reaches over to give the bodily-attached serpent a gentle stroke like a pet. Up the side behind the jaw, and along the back of the skull with a little fingertip pat. She realizes she probably isn't going to finish the takoyaki before it goes a bit stale, though, so next she pinches the piece she's just nibbled, pulling it off the skewer and holding the rest out on offer. Natsuki might not be hungry either, but she may as well. She hasn't always had the privilege of 'enough food to share', nor 'anyone to share it with', so it's a kind of gesture she's still experimenting with. Whether it's taken or not, White finally sees fit to comment again after swallowing her tiny mousish bite, turning over the tooth-opened puff of octopus-treat for a better look at the contents at the same time. "... Food is scarcer... In the Demon Realm. I can't... Go to human lands... Just for the food. And I meant to... Come here anyway. Eventually." She's still being extra quiet, like she's telling secrets that the old men aren't meant to hear, but otherwise seems to be treating them like they don't exist, plodding along at her slow verbal pace with implicit care. "... I have a lot of... Places to visit, still. I never... Expected... to have..." A longer pause indicates she's really mulling over the phrasing, for a few moments. "Enough... Friends to think about... To need a list."
Natsuki Nuki	There ARE fish out there for White to see. Osaka Bay is rich in sea life and fairly clean for a city bay, especially since there are more than just fish in the bay. A few aquatic spirit-types hang out, not quite aware they're being seen, beneath the rolling cusps and scoops of the water above, just as amused at the fishing lures as a spectator sport from below as someone like Natsuki might be to the experience above. Kodoku, sprawled serpentine, rolls slightly with the attention, and has an indulgent-allowance pleasure to being woken to the obeisance of attention and stroking fingers of White. The snake tastes the air with forked tongue and slides its jaw against White's hand, curling up and about wrist and arm. There's not really an 'if allowed', with her arm so close. She can retreat, advance, or remain, but she must choose before her arm is captured completely - or it is her choice to be in that state. Considering it's White, she has plenty of choice. Plucking skewer from White's offer with a pinch of fingers, Natsuki takes the assent and gift a similar way, pleased and remaining on it, slacken in the slow unwinding of her mood. There had been things to think about, And it was storms or sunset fishing. Sometimes it was better to do nothing rather than everything, feel slowly and mutedly rather than rapidly and powerfully. It was the slow moments that existed at sunset, between the work of day and the prowl of night. It was the slow moments, and fishing, which became a kind of active doing-nothing. Delicately moving to take one of the last pair of takoyaki off the skewer and clean until it clears, she crunches and appreciates the treat, offering back the last one to White in a gesture up with the stick. Was it a take one and pass situation? Was all of it hers? There was a reciprocity that seemed ritualized at the same time - deliberate motions to loop back. "Food's scarcer because Humans don't hate suffering, they hate discomfort. They'll comfortably suffer anything. Demons will tolerate anything to escape suffering. That's what I've found." She leaves that besides White's slow words. "But I don't blame you for coming to see my town. It is better than most." Natsuki speaks casually, not really caring about the scattering of uncles, but she takes it slow enough White has all the time and range to speak she needs. "Well, lists are good. They remind us of the things we have. I've heard 'don't count your blessings', but sometimes the good things need to be recognized. Success breeds success, as much as failure helps teach you to it."
White	Once Natsuki's taken the whole piece of takoyaki, White takes back the one she'd already bitten into. She probably wouldn't have been bothered if Natsuki had taken both, but this is more in line with her intention. Kodoku's winding draws a shut-eyed glance but no particular effort to retreat, and she continues to stroke the creases of the jaw, the ridge of its brow, and a bit to the tip of its snout mostly with her thumb as it presses in for more, gradually adjusting to pay heed to whichever spot the serpent wants most. That's the best way to handle most creatures, really, visage of an animal or not... You just follow the cues they give you. This kind of thing is much easier than picking apart doublespeak, at least. Before long, her gaze is back on the water (although this doesn't hinder her snake-handling. Eyes in the back of her head and all), and her squat settles in more until she's all but sitting down, knees against her chest with her other arm wrapped around to hold her dress in place just as much as to hold the last bit of takoyaki in front of her mouth. "It's crowded here. But it's fun." she says, about Natsuki's town. Her own apartment home is somewhere distinctly more suburban than city-center, so it's a change of pace that she doesn't normally opt into. "People worth respecting... Seem to keep lists, a lot." she observes, lifting one, two, three fingers from the skewer in her right hand, and pausing not for lack of people to count but to avoid dropping it. "... I wonder if... This is even a little bit... Like how cities used to look. In 'that' world. 600 years ago. The Demon Lord... Might not really know." Which is perhaps a little strange, if she was old enough to live in that era. "I wonder if... It'd be a good thing. To go back to this, there."
Natsuki Nuki	White has a command of how to apply a little attention to Kodoku, and Natsuki is relaxed enough, that... Truly, it is the experience with a friend of a different sort. The Newspaper Club president was one of Natsuki's first friends among the student council of Tokyo University and the mixture of prolific writer and lurker and total quiet shut-in was a particular blend that White bore in repetition. So similar, in some ways, Natsuki just let White fall into the same role and spot. Kodoku is honest, in coiled approval, and Natsuki keeps the slow life moment going because nothing is really bothering her beyond feelings, and fish. And neither of those needed to be tackled and pounced upon. A slow cast into the distance might eventually catch a meal, and sometimes a bite just walked right up off the street. Natsuki wasn't feeling like too much food, though she was always peckish enough for a snack, and White had that on offer. "Crowded... You might like Tokyo, but you might not. It's even more crowded, where you can't breathe without sharing the air, like the city breathes collectively. It's a press, and that's not even the intersections. Here, I think, it's more comfortable, but-" Natsuki resettles her feet into a wider, more relaxed stance and glances at her cast-out rod. "I like a little room for me, too. Maybe I'm just from this town and settled in already. I thought I wanted to leave, and I did, but I didn't want to stay gone, either." A time passes. "They keep lists of important things. What's worth remembering." A beat passes. "Should I write down your name on something, White?" There's an outstanding question, though, and Natsuki has to think about that. "This world got the way it was, in just a short sixty years. But it did take so long. Do you like the press? Or do you like a simpler world? Would you prefer suffering, or discomfort?"
White	White has no particular memories of doing things like this. Not as herself, not as 'Wakaba', and certainly not before that. It's only recently that she's really seen any merit in paying attention to people, in general. But some things- things she's 'supposed to do'- still come to her automatically enough that she doesn't pause to question them. She's seen it in a show, most likely. It's a little silly. By the time she'd considered if Kodoku was 'of' Natsuki enough that this might be transgressive, she'd already committed and been approved, and so there's no reason not to continue. "... I probably wouldn't... Like it. When there are... Too many people, together... I think they stop being 'people'... In my head. Too many more... And I'd... Rather go to the rooftops." This is something she's thought about before, of course. That the more people there are, the more overwhelming it is to try and acknowledge every one of them, the less she wants to try even up to her original limits. She can't blame that just on her Evil Eye giving her so much more to process, either... But, she works her way back around to Natsuki's musings, and shifts her own posture to fully sit down on her right hip, legs curled in and laid sideways to be a little more comfortable without sitting directly on her boots. "Did you... Just want... To be sure... You 'could' leave?" she asks, like she's grading her own understanding of Natsuki privately. "Maybe it's easier... To let go. Of distracting things, that way." she wonders about the lists. The question that follows draws her implicit gaze back in Natsuki's direction again, more properly aimed at her face this time. "... If you want to. I don't know... In a year, or two... How 'memorable' what I've done... Will be." The final question seems strangely hard for her though, showing in the slight tension of her jaw, and the way she looks back out over the water without fixing on any particular thing, neither fish nor spirit nor person. "... I'm still making up... My mind."