The mall is full of nerds just set free from the Fantasy Fist tournament or whatever, but that's not why Seika is here... she's here for offworld spirits and a big stack of whatever foods the Crab-employed short order cooks feel like impaling onto a skewer and griddling, charring, and/or boiling in oil.

It's crowded in here (nerds!) so when the server asks her if she minds sharing a table, Seika assents, "as long as it's not some guy in one of those dumb gamer happi with the giant playing cards and half naked ningyo printed on the back."

It wasn't. It was someone in Crane blue, floppy wide brimmed hat (on the table next to them) top, shorts and thigh highs all with subtle silver trim and the occasional bunny motif. They were also only just taller than Seika . . .

Currently they were trying, and failing to identify what had been grilled, deep fried or both and stuck on a stick and smothered in sauce. Eventually they shrugged and took a bite.

"Hey," Seika greets her... very... blue... tablemate amicably. "Mind if I join you, Crane-san?" She flops onto the seat opposite them, and only then notices the seated Crane isn't quite as taller-than-me as most people. It's a nice change, for once.

"Ooh, is that the fried oysters?"

He looked up, fried . . . thing in his mouth still.

"Oh hi Yoritomo-samaaaaaa! Haven't seen you since the oshidama!"

At least he'd not talked with his mouth full.

"Oysters? Is that what this is? I just asked for what was best today!"

Even Hinata viewed the fried object with some suspicion, as he tried biting into it again.

Oh, it's him! He was dressed very differently from that day on the beach--though she really should've recognized him before she sat down, just from the bunny motif. "Well... it looks like it could be oysters underneath that tempura. They should be good, I think they farm 'em locally." She grins as she picks up her own paper menu. "How've you been, Asahina-san? I heard you're working tomorrow."

Hinata finished his bite, chewed, tasted and looked pleasantly surprised. In fact the full journey from suspicion, through trepidation onwards to fulfilment and happiness was plain on his face.

"Oh, it is oyster!"

He blinked and nodded.

"Oh yes, the concert! I get to sing with Yakumo-samaaaa!! So looking forward to it."

He may have bounced in his seat a little.

"That's cool," Seika nods cheerily. "Pretty impressive you got it set up so quick, too."

She hmms to herself a little as she scribbles on the menu card with the brush pen that had come to it. "Definitely want to try those oysters... Golden Carp shochu... ooh, squid... eggplant..."

She looks up suddenly, tossing her hair out of her eyes. "Oh, yeah! Almost forgot. I didn't get a chance to say before, but I actually met one of your bandmates before. On New Kalani...oh, about a year ago, little less? I hope Kakita Nazuna-san is doing okay these days."

"You know Naz-kun????? Oh that's great! He's on the Homeworld right now, with the Crane court delegation there while I got sent here and the other boys are all over space."

He grinned, looking extra happy now.

"He hasn't talked that much about New Makini much, but we've been really busy this year."

"It's New Kalani, actually," Seika corrects him, but a bit absently, as she's still perusing the drinks list--and, honestly, it's not like it's the best-known of the Mantis planets, so she doesn't expect everyone to know it by name.

"Yeah, Kakita-san was a good guy, really decent to me even though as far as he knew I was just some ronin. Killer moves in Moshi Moshi Super Sunrise Escalation... though you guys dance for a living, so maybe I shouldn't expect to compare," she adds, laughing.

"Oh so that's why he suddenly went out and bought an old Moshi Moshi Super Sunrise Escalation machine! It's great fun even if Yuta-kun has all the high scores."

He finished off the deep fried oyster in spicy sauce and blinked away the sudden hit of extra spice as it made his eyes water.

"Oh . . . that's a bit stronger . . . than I usually have."

Which sent him reaching for his drink, probably the intention of the sauce all along.

Seika hands off her paper menu to a server along with a flash of her chop. "Just keep a tab open, thanks!"

She turns back to Hinata. "Umm... Yuta, is he the tall quiet one that does all the, um, moves? Sorry, we pretty much only get bootlegs of your stuff out my way, and audio travels easier than video..." She shakes her head, chuckling. "Anyway, if he can get the high score over Kakita-san, I know he has moves."

"Yeah he's the tall one!"

If being two inches higher than the other smols counts as tall . . .

"He doesn't sing like the rest of us but he makes it up with the dancing. He trained with the Daidoji so he's really, really fit!!"

Eyes glazed slightly into private memories . . .

Tallness is relative, and the strong silent Yuta is probably a few inches taller than Seika even with her favorite boots, so yes... the tall one.

"Whoa, I bet." Daidoji and Tsuruchi--among other slim but muscular young bushi--had certainly held pride of place on some of the dorm poster walls at the temple on Dawn, back in the day.

A few plates clink down on the table and Seika gives the server a high sign and a quick smile. "Yesss, that's the stuff!" She plucks up a skewer adorned with a whole (if small) grilled squid. "The station-farmed ones aren't really the same as the ones from a gravity well, you know?"

About to nibble, she pauses, struck by curiosity, to ask, "How do you get to be part of a band like yours, anyway? Is it like a special forces, trained-together-since-birth thing? Or do you put it together yourselves?"

"Well Naz-kun, Ki-kun and Tomoyo-kun all trained together at the Academy, but it was Doji Takakenta-samaaa who put the group together and he decided to add Yuta-kun and me to make the five. Then there was a lot of traning and learning songs and dances and everything before we went anywhere near a stage or studio."

He'd been staring at the squid and stopped a server in passing.

"Can I have one of those please?!?!?!"

"Mmmph." Seika swallows a mouthful of squid. '"Yum. Yeah, you won't regret that call. This is good." She chases it with a gulp of her drink, narrowing her eyes happily.

"So, like," she pauses before tearing into the remnants of the squid again, "did you want to be in a group like that originally? Or it's just something you get told to do and you do it? It definitely seems to suit you." When she'd met Nazuna, it had been immediately obvious that he was driven to do exactly what he was doing--Kakita trained, ambitious, the whole nine yards. Hinata is harder to read. (On that point, at least. On others, not at all...)

"Oh, well I had just finished my gempukku and was waiting for my first assignment. Actually I'd been waiting a few weeks and then Doji-samaaa came along and told me this was what I'd be doing!!"

While waiting for his squid, the second deep fried oyster met it's end to the ravenous bottomless pit that the Asahina was getting a reputation as.

"I thought I was going to be a Funerary Priest to be honest, but this is so much more fun."

Just imagine having . . . this . . . officiate your funeral . . .

"Uh... that's..."

Seika cannot, in fact, imagine it. Her brain just sort of goes blank when she tries. After a couple of attempts, she gives up.

"Yeah, no kidding, touring the galaxy in a star group sounds a lot more fun than that."

She has recourse to her drink, which is admittedly not a hardship. The Golden Carp Super Draft she'd picked hits just the right sweet spot of strong, palatable, and pleasantly lowbrow. "Not a gig I'd want either. Not that anyone ever tried to push me into something like that, luckily."

"Yeah I would never have seen so many planets doing that. Probably stuck on Harusame forrrrrrever."

His eyes brighten as his plate of grilled squid arrives.

"Oh that smells so nice. Lots of planets means lots of different foods as well!"

Seika tries to remember what she knows about Harusame from some long-ago astral geography lesson. It's a Crane planet, so there are presumably worse places to be stuck for life. Still... "Yeah, I can't disagree. Never getting to travel anywhere would really bite." As if for emphasis, she bites into a skewer of grilled vegetables interspersed with quails' eggs, or at least eggs laid by something local and quail-sized.

"I always like to try whatever local stuff I can find when get to travel, yeah," she agrees after swallowing her bite. "Even if it looks weird, like those kelp noodles on New Kalani. Those were actually really good, too."

As he would have a conversation asking what kelp was on D6 Hinata did not hear it being mentioned as he was tackling his squid. From a distance it was debateable on whom was eating whom, but a sudden reduction in tentacles proved Hinata was the victor.

"Oh this is really tasty. Thanks for showing me it. I don't always get to sample all the foods I want. Asahina Mari-sama is always saying 'Don't eat that' 'Only one of those' 'Double exercise time if you finish that packet'. "

He did 'stern Asahina matron voice' really badly, but you got the idea.