In wise foresight (Even though it would be of no use later), Nishida went to grab a quick bite to eat before the sake tasting.
He didn't eat fast food very often, but Himei recommended the restaurant for a quick bite.

He had sat down at a table with some of those fried chicken and started the bucket in front of him. Were there no chopsticks here? Should he just eat it with his fingers?

Or was that after the sake tasting? Either way, sake and fried food went hand in hand, that was something that was pretty much hardcoded in Crab custom. It was a shame that outside fried food couldn't be brought into the event. Eriko imagined that would have raised some eyebrows and some Scorpion might have dropped their masks at the audacity!

Eriko ordered a personal snack bucket for herself after she found a hankering for fried food. She didn't have a membership card at this place, thankfully. Her gaze curiously went around the seating area and found Nishida there. That brought back memories of that Crab pub on Asakaze but Nishida, here, of all people?

She casually picked up her order and strolled over, giving his a bow. "Nishida-sama! Good evening, fancy seeing you here! Doing some investigating before you invest in a franchise?"

Of course, this was all after the sake tasting, and by the power of the Fortunes, Nishdia's player was probably a bit off too.

"Eriko-san?" Nishida looked up incredulously, He hadn't really been paying attention at the miai anymore, which may have been because he had been looking daggers towards Akagi at the time.
It took him a while to realize the clan colors. He processed the question in his head and then finally gave an answer, "Similar, well this was the closest place after the sake tasting, I guess I forgot to eat well before that" he admitted. Then he remembered everything that had happened between the crabs and the rest of the people on the World of Dreams, "It's nice to see you still alive, what brings you to the World of Dreams?"

Eriko smirked at that. "You were drinking on an empty stomach? That's pretty brutal, I can imagine. You should know that if you ever had to keep up with a Hida. But not a bad place for some post-drinking grub, even if it might make you want a beer afterward."

"Thanks..." She chuckled, half-wondering if he was sincere about that. "I hope there was never any doubt on your part, I'm sure you probably still have migraines needing to explain my adventures and Hida Akemi's mysterious injuries to our hosts and our Clan. I've been over at the Lion embassy for a month-ish. They figured I could do some good with my city knowledge and sleuth skills."

"And how about you?" She gestured to the nearby open seat. "...may I?"

" Take a seat, take a seat" he gestured to a vacant seat. "I don't think in all my years I've ever had to compete with a Hida.... Probably wouldn't have ended well for me either." Nishida was many things, but fit, athletic or muscular were not adjectives that would describe him.

He chuckled a bit, "I think as much as it gave me a headache, Akemi-san's and your action was right and important. At least in front of Kami Hida, you did the right thing. The bureaucracy during and after was hell, but not unconquerable, especially after my wedding."

"As for my new post. the Miya put me in the IRS,... Half of the samurai there have never seen a Yasuki up close."

"Eh, me neither, to be honest," she said as she settled down at the indicated seat. "You'd have to be like a Kuni shugenja to stand toe-to-toe with one, I think that's the only competition they're getting from outside of their family."

She shook her cup, which came with its own dipping side up, to jumble the fried bits of chicken bites around. "Do you want to try some chicken bites with fire sauce?"

"It's easy to forget that the Yasuki handle all of that administrative red tape after every mess we make. So, you have my thanks on that, at least," she said before she popped a chicken bit in her mouth. Her gaze went to either his mon or colours he might be wearing. "They probably never seen the inside of a trading market either but you look good in your new role, at the very least. Comfortable?"

He nodded at the question of tasting, took a chicken with fiery sauce and held out his bucket of sweet and sour sauce to Eriko.

"I think the IRS is the best position I could have been in. In principle, the core of my work remains the same, with the difference that I can now view funds from all parts of the empire, at least what is in my clearance."

He took some of his own chicken and ate it gratefully, the sake had hit him hard and Setsu wanted to meet with him later.

"Admittedly, I still have to get used to Imperial etiquette, but then I've only been there a few months. What's your situation? Arrived well in the Lion?"

Eriko wasn't going to say no to sharing, especially when it was from a former-Yasuki. It might have been the fairest trade she'll get from one in a while. She would take the piece and raise it up in something of a 'cheers' before taking a small nibble from it.

"Sounds like you're doing as well as fish in water from the sounds of it, if you don't mind the expression." She chuckled at her small joke on the matter. "Oh, as for me...I guess still adjusting more or less, it's only been some months or so, not even a year. It feels a bit similar to my stint in the military, even if I'm not exactly in the Lion military. I've been mostly doing watching and running in my job at the embassy. I'm sure they've had plenty of details on my records to not let me get too carried away with travelling. They don't exactly have much of a wandering witch hunter department in the Lion, so their battle doctrine for me is fairly narrow."

Well, Nishida seemed destined to have Asakaze flashbacks anyway. It would be doubled down with the entrance of Hide, who may have gone for a workout after her date earlier and now was hungry again.

And she entered to see her wife with a familiar face. She got into line, every now and then looking over towards Eriko and Nishida curiously. Kanna mentioned others from Asakaze here, so she wasn’t too surprised.

Matsu Eriko wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 08, 2022 12:29 am

...

"I hope for your sake they still find a good place for your talents, it would be a tragic waste of Kuni wisdom if they relegated you to being a simple drone."

When he saw Hide, he could hardly believe his eyes. He turned to Eriko and said, "Look what the cat dragged into the house, another one from Asakaze."

Then it dawned on him, didn't those two have something on Asakaze?

"Well, I'm sure they'll take my advice under consideration but I have some pretty stiff competition. It's hard to compete against the wisdom of the ancestors and millennia of proven battle tactics." And somewhere in the middle of that, there's the meddling of magical cat people. "I'm sure they'll find something for me in the rank and file."

"Oh, yes, I think that's Matsu Hide-san. Right?" She chuckled at that. "Well, I should know, she's my wife after all."

"Ohhhh, that's right" he replied, "Sorry, after I've lost my,.... Partner I had little interest in the rest of the Miai" Nishida confessed, trying to sound cheerful.

Clearing his throat, he watched Hide continue to stand in line and said," Sooo, Matsu Hide-san? I hope you had a nice wedding?"

Hide turned her attention to her name being said, a slightly confused look. “Ah? Oh! Yeah! It was certainly nice. Exciting.” Of course she chuckled, as if laughing at an inside joke. “It was certainly a… Unique wedding experience. You wouldn’t find another like that in recent memory.”

"Oh, uhm..." Eriko murmured on the note regarding his partner. She drew a blank as to who this person might be. Unfortunately, her escapades with the mushroom zombie terrors and then her past caught up to her made her all too busy to know that he and Chiruha were a potential item together. "Kind of a bummer, Nishida-sama. Sorry about that. That's one way to ruin a stay on a mushroom planet."

Eriko waved Hide over since she was apparently already listening in. It didn't seem proper to have her yell across the restaurant if they were going to have a conversation together. "I have some chicken here while you're waiting!"

He shrugged. Without the sake beforehand, he probably wouldn't have even brought it up, but the devil's stuff makes him sentimental.
"I ended up making the best choice, doing a service to the clan and the family, and hopefully doing my part to support the children of Hida," he said, more to reassure himself than anything else.

With the inevitable appearance of Hide, he first observed the interaction between the two.

Well, the line would eventually dwindle, so Hide decided to approach the two former Crab at their table. “I can just wait patiently. Plus, I wanted to get the spicy chicken recipe this time. I want something with a little kick!”

She turned her attention to Nishida and gave him a polite bow. “Ah, it’s good to see you again. I do hope you have been well since I last saw you on Asakaze.”

"That's always a good thing, of course," Eriko said in agreement regarding the outcome of the miai, looking a touch concerned. After getting caned by the Phoenix, she would have thought that she had gotten the worst of it. She supposed without her good evening, she might have ended on a rather miserable note. It was hard to think that Nishida wouldn't have gotten at least some sort of profitable outcome.

"You know, if knew you were going to come with me, we could have just gotten something together..." She smirked at Hide before turning to Nishida. "Matsu Hide-san and Miya Nishida-sama. I imagine that you've met already at least once during the miai? I wasn't too sure. Just a few days ago, we've gotten a report that everyone from the miai was here. Okay, obviously an exaggeration, hah!"

"It's nice to see you again too" Nishdia replied, bowing his head slightly. "I had the opportunity to meet Hide-san on Asakaze" he replied to Eriko, vividly remembering the little 'interrogation' he had with Hide in the gym, when he wanted to find out who the mysterious members of the exploration group were that Akemi didn't want to tell him then.

"I've also heard rumors about your tactical and strategic prowess, Hide-san," he admitted.

"What...?" Hide had to wonder how those rumors started. Did she do something smart? People were bound to be very disappointed by the truth. "I... Huh. So, tactical prowess, huh? That's an... Interesting statement. But, yeah, there's a good number of us here. Funny that."

"Can you believe her? Don't let her undersell you, Nishida-sama. It's so second nature to her that she doesn't even consider it to be tactical prowess," Eriko snickered on that note. "Some tacticians have to chart out plans on a map and maybe have some of those cute toys on represent certain things but Hide-san just has it casually wired in her brain. She just gets on the horn, calls who needs to be called, acts and does everything on the fly like a true warrior. It just happens."