Koyuki waited, having just gotten off the line of the tea shop post giving her order to the tender. Standing off near where she'd originally waited for her order some days prior with Eriko. Now, she was just trying to get back up and moving again. Mind wandering to other places, people. Toying at the hem of her kimono-shirt like it was about to display the answers if she did it just right or for long enough. A slight bright blue dominated her top today, fresh paint worn, she'd been sure to appropriately prepare herself and it even looked like she just had more energy today than usual.

Which was strange, and a bit frightening.

Behind her in the queue and totally not noticing her had been the little Crane. Dressed in blue top, shorts and thigh highs, with bunny backpack and a wide floppy brimmed hat he'd taken an age before ordering, trying to make up his mind. The entire queue behind him trying their best not to mutter.

"Oh ok yes, I'll have the chocolate and raspberry one please!"

Koyuki might look like she had energy, Hinata was showing he had.

Had it been anyone else, literally anyone else dressed like that Koyuki would have simply left the store when she'd gotten her order and said nothing of it ever again. Instead, unfortunately, she couldn't lie to herself about this. She'd recognized the little Asahina as someone who'd been floating around Rei and Yakumo that night some days ago at the club. Despite every single bone in her body screaming at her otherwise, Koyuki's hand raised in a brief wave as to call Hinata's attention to her waiting off on the side.

While she waited for the Asahina to accept, and make, contact she took one slow and calming breath.

The staff had prepared his drink quickly, knowing the queue behind the Crane would need to be served equally quickly if they didn't want loud complaints. Hinata took a taste as he turned back towards the tables and smiled. It was nice, not a deluxe triple pearl nice, but a decent chocolate and tangy raspberry. Then he saw the wave and headed over while the brain tried to process who this was. He was half way there before the slow motion cells connected face paint to Kuni.

"Oh hi, Kuni-samaa!"

Koyuki cringed, physically and noticeably. Enough so that the white of her teeth was noticeable behind the vibrant red of her lipstick. Koyuki collected her own tea in a opaque container from the waiting station after it was delivered. Turning back fully toward Hinata she forced on a pleasantly completely neutral demeanor, which perhaps was only pleasant by Koyuki's standards. A rise of her chest betrayed the calming breath once more.

"Asahina-sama, I believe? You were in the company of Susumu Yakumo and Usagi Rei? Were you in a rush or-" she swallows- "want to join me while we drink?" she nods toward the tables.

Big eyes blinked over his boba.

"Oh, you were at the club? I'm Asahina Hinata! I don't have much on today, so I'd love to!"

Not that he read faces anyway, but he had extra difficulty reading Kuni faces with the industrial make up all over them.

"Excellent," she said, through gritted teeth. Leading the way she walks them over toward one of the waiting seating arrangements. Option, instead, for a simple seating arrangement meant for two between two other larger ones, There was one nearby magazine with some pop-y title that read something like Insider! but she didn't actually care enough to take a good look at it. Setting herself down into her seat, she pops the straw into her drink with a mechanical precision while Hinata joined her.

Looking to meet the Crane when he sat, she began, "I was. Forgive my delayed response. I am Kuni Koyuki, and I serve as an attache here at the embassy to the general staff. When those more important have need of something, I come at their call. Diplomatic quarters are hectic," she said, but shook her head.

"You are a-" shit, how do idols work again? "Contemporary with Susumu Yakumo, right?"

Hinata traipsed along behind Koyuki, glad that she picked the smaller seats and not the high ones he'd had to climb into when here with the Imperial. He flopped into the seat, the bunny ears on his backpack flapping.

"You mean we're both Idol Singers??? I'm in Usagi Drop! and Yakumo-samaa! sings solo, but we've known each other for . . . " The eyes narrowed as he performed difficult maths. ". . . nearly four years now. She knew the other boys in Drop! before I even joined!"

"Yes," she swallows, "that," Koyuki focuses in on her drink. Stirring it with the large straw puncturing the top of the cup. Moving around the contents as if to distract her from the reality of what she was facing. All of her fears personified. Pastel, glitter, unrepentant joy bursting out of the seams, a smile that seems so effortlessly impossible to maintain.

"So, you must know a lot about her then?" she asks, gritting her teeth.

"Oh only what we get from home and through the Imperial networks. I mean we still don't get much Spider media even though we're friends now!"

A pearl or three got lodged in his straw and he had to fight the boba to clear the blockage with a hard slurp!

"Right, so less of a known and more of a known about?" she asks, daring the question with that slight raise of her brow as if somehow Hinata might explode into a fiery death for them both. Or glitter, which was probably far worse.

"Oh we've met several times, but I know more about her music than I do about her. Not like I know her favourite boba flavours or anything?"

But Naz-kun did . . . just so he could hate it.

"Hmm," she vocalizes between sealed lips. Wondering at something for a moment while she played around with the drink in front of her. Stirring it with that little bit of resistance gave something of a satisfying feeling to the action. "What are your favorite songs of hers? The good ones?"

"Oh 'Our Battlefield' and 'Do You Remember Love?' are absolute Yakumo-samaaaa!! classics!!!"

Big eyes looked over his straw at her, showing that she wasn't the only one in makeup, just his was a lot less . . . industrial.

Wincing at that held note, the pitch and volume of it. Koyuki busies herself with a good and refreshing drink from her cup rather than sitting here playing with it the whole time.

"Do you, by chance, have copies of these somehow or-" she looks pensive. "I don't know how this works. Idols and.. songs. How do I listen to them?"

"I do, back at the Embassy but I can't copy them. The Spider protect their music recordings so you can't."

The Crane did as well . . . just using more aesthetically pleasing encryption.

Koyuki nods in understanding, sitting with the drink tucked up under her chin. Sipping from it slowly she seems to consider her position a bit. Almost as if she'd partially started to forget Hinata was there. She didn't, mind, but it certainly appeared that way while she thought. A slightly creased brow was all that was there indicating the thinking going on.

For the moment though, Koyuki was silent.

Big blue eyes sandwiched between floppy blue hat and chocolate-raspberry boba glass watched her in silence. If there was any thinking going on . . . then there was absolutely no sign of it.

Just the repeated slurp from the boba straw.

Eventually Koyuki notices enough that Hinata's just been looking at her without saying anything for a while. Sparking the great Koyuki/Hinata stare off. A legend that would be told for eons if either of them were aware enough, or cared enough, to spread the tale. However, eventually, Koyuki broke the silence with a most pertinent question.

"Are you just staring at me?"

He blinked.

"Oh . . . was it my turn to speak? I thought it was your turn?"