ueharahiro

[ueharahiro]

The restaurant comes alive with awe and shock, inhales of gasp as the young witch cries out in pain and his fingers fall uselessly to the ground with a noiseless thud. Hiro clicks his tongue in his mouth and steels his expression. This pain does not move him. These cries fall upon deaf ears. These gasps are nothing to him. He is no stranger to brutality. Mercy is for the weak and it was forced out of him at such a young age that there is no room for it now. “Weak,” his voice cuts sharper than his blade beneath his breath.

There’s no hesitation now. There’s nothing but movement and the glimmer of sharp steel and the sound of wind fracturing as his katana cuts through air cleanly. He only needs to now flick the blood off his blade, it splatters in a crimson streak against the floor, before he sheaths the katana with a soft click.

The restaurant holds its breath.

Hiro turns his back, something he would not do with a living opponent but the boy is already dead. He simply hasn’t realized it yet. Blood will pour from his throat, appearing as a thin harmless line across his neck until it grows, steadily, slowly, rapidly, pouring without relent. Hiro is already at the doors to exit by the time the restaurant exhales. It surges like a living thing, roaring like a beast at the smell of blood and the body collapsing.

It would have been a rather beautiful sight, could Hasbaki look to it without giving away that he cared, giving away that he wished to see Hiro in fight from an onlookers perspective, rather than being the one victim to the blade. He knew it was something though, from the concern across his coven's faces that lifted their brows and left their mouths parted, and from the silence that radiated the restaurant like all had been struck under some curse.

All wide eyes were on the Uehara and Aneji witches.

He can, however, hear Hiro's words in his mind, soft whispers triggering synapses in his brain that made it feel as though the sound is filtering in through his own ear. 'You must have a death wish.' He did. Hasbaki wished for death often, but the words weren't for him, perhaps Hiro did not even know that he could hear them, that he still held some form of control over the other's actions - or rather, their intentions.

A dark hand raising up above his lips, as though running the side of his finger across his upper lip in boredom he hid his utterance.

The crude witch immediately reached for the blade at his cheek to push it away, Hasbaki aware he would not be able to hold something so sharp and so magically imbued. However, he only considered something else when he heard the witch scream in pain from his own action. As he knew death was coming for the young man, that Hiro would have no choice but to kill the man continuing to attempt harm on him, how easy the scene had been to set for his demise.

What if there was a way to get rid of his Uncle. What if in the right circumstances...

His attention had drifted into his own mind making him forget that he'd laid the intention in the other to provoke Hiro by all means necessary, not noticing the way all in the establishment flinched watching a man remove his own fingers trying to hold a blade that could not be held, blood coating the shimmering katana, digits falling to the ground.

"Stand," Hasbaki simply instructed of the rest of the coven. No doubt sense would come to the staff soon enough. They'd be asked to leave, but he needed to show strength. Show indifference, and so did Hiro. They both needed to start playing their roles with more vigilance. They needed a real plan and finally Hasbaki felt ready for one.

[ueharahiro]

[ueharahiro]

The way this creatures speaks to him… is too familiar.

Too familiar for a stranger perching outside his window. Too familiar for someone who wants something from him. Hiro’s cold eyes narrow to near slits as he watches the dark creature half bright and half flickering shadow from dancing firelight. It makes undead features look living again. Dangerous.

This is not someone to be trusted.

Someone who taps cracks into his glass and seems to want to inhale the air he exhales like it’s a gift. Whose voice turns to velvet at the prospect of unraveling him.

Hiro’s tongue clicks and pulls away from the window. This isn’t a courtship. This is entrapment. “Are you seeking help or a body for your bed? If you’re here for the latter, you’ll get nothing from me.” Hiro’s coven has taught him that succumbing to desires of the flesh only invites weakness. Vulnerability is curated in physical desires so he has never lain with anyone. Not even his betrothed. And he’s already had his fill of weakness from another trying to find a way into his skin. He has no time nor patience nor desire for another.

“Your gift will be my blade removing your tongue if you do not speak plainly,” Hiro unlatches the window and lets it swing open, creaking at the wooden hinges. Cool night air rushes in to suck all the warmth from the room. Foolish, perhaps, to unlatch his window, but perhaps, that's exactly how he wants to be perceived. He was taught to use every advantage at his disposal and his youth is a weapon. Disarming to the predator who picks him as their prey. “What healing do you need and why," Hiro does not invite his night visitor in, for this open window is a test, "should I care?”

Doran laughed, not out of malice, not even out of joy, but out of delight. His amusement was a creature of its own, slinking out of his mouth like smoke, curling in the air between them. That boy was too lovely to belong to this world. A thing made of stillness, as if some forgotten god had whispered, let there be beauty, and forgot to add warmth.

What a treasure. What a tragedy.

He leaned closer to the cracked glass, fingers gloved in fine leather tracing idly over a fracture. It was shaped like a starburst. He rather liked that. A little omen, perhaps. A little crown. Yes, he thought, it suits him. A prince of frost and porcelain.

“You say it like a curse,” Doran murmured aloud, savoring each word on his tongue. As if it would wound me, being your devil. He almost pitied the boy, so composed, so cold. So afraid of being wanted. 

Behind the glass, Hiro did not move, not even a twitch. It thrilled Doran to no end. Is he even breathing? he wondered, pulse quickening. Does he know what he looks like? How precious that composure is?

He chuckled again, softly, as if he couldn’t help it. Of course he knows. That’s the fun of it.

“Oh, my darling,” he said, tasting the word like blood on his tongue, “do you want a courtship, then? With me?”

He imagined what it would be like, to watch Hiro flinch. To see something crack in that mask. He didn’t needHiro’s fear. He only wanted his attention. His precision. His perfect, brittle control. And how delicious it would be to undo it.

Doran was not unused to devotion. He had been adored before. Feared. Obeyed. But Hiro... he does not bend. Not yet.

“You mustn’t bleed into the water,” he said, all gentle warning, “if you don’t want the sharks to come.”

Doran tapped the glass with a fingertip, a sound like a heartbeat. He watched Hiro’s stillness, the way the firelight skimmed over cheekbones sharp enough to cut open a lie. There was no glow in those eyes. No flicker of curiosity. Only black glass. Doran wanted to throw a stone into it. Just to see what ripples.

“I’ll bring flowers next time,” he said. “Since you’ve asked so sweetly.”

He didn’t even like flowers. But that wasn’t the point.

What would he do with a bouquet? Burn it? Freeze it? Doran grinned, wolfish now, thoughts curling like ivy around the image. Keep a petal, maybe, like a pressed secret inside a book he never opens. Oh, I’d love to be that secret.

“But what will you give me?” Doran asked, voice velveted now, softer, close to purring. “A kiss on the pane? A sliver of a secret? A piece of that cold, lovely spine you keep so straight?”

He wanted to see it. The real Hiro, uncoiled.

The night clawed at the corners of his sleeves, the cold a ghost that tried and failed to seep into his bones. He missed the feeling of winter. Missed the sharpness of it. He envied mortals, sometimes, the luxury of shivering.

“You aren’t being a very kind host,” he said, pout forming just enough to be theatrical. “No wine, no welcome. No warmth at all.”

But it didn’t matter. He was already too charmed.

You could bury a blade in my throat and I’d still thank you for your time, Doran thought, watching that perfect, lifeless boy behind the glass. You’re a work of art. And I’ve never been able to resist breaking beautiful things.

“Next night, then,” he whispered. “Flowers, as promised. But don’t expect roses. I prefer nightshade. It lasts longer.”

[ueharahiro]

💙 - Do you wish you had a confidant within your coven?

"I almost had one once. He died."

[ueharahiro]

💜 - Did you like yourself better when you were younger or more now?

"I was weaker back then. Of course I like myself better now."

[ueharahiro]

❤️ - Do you ever have fantasies about anyone in town?

"As if I would do anything so foolish."

"I've thought of hands, his look very large. Strong. The veins are prominent against his knuckles. In dreams... they wrap around my wrist, encircled entirely... and sometimes... I bring them to my lips."

@hasbakianeji

[ueharahiro]

❤️ - Where do you wish Has would kiss next?

"What makes you think I want him to kiss me at all?"

"My neck."

@hasbakianeji

[ueharahiro]

💚 - Do you have any sort of physical indicators that show your witch lineage? Like scales? Or maybe an extra toe?

"No scales. No extra toe. But my great great grandfather, they say he had skin pale as jade, eyes black as coal and hair like the moon. My grandmother once said I look like him. The Yin to his Yang. Perhaps that is my lineage."

[ueharahiro]

Hiro is very good with faces, less good at recognizing feet but luckily the face is enough. “Ah, yes, I see,” dark eyes flick from the raised leg and aforementioned foot with an obvious expression of distaste that has nothing to do with the fact the foot is fine and everything to do that a foot is being brandished near his face. An awkward twitch of his lips, “You can put your foot down now.” Hiro much prefers others feet to remain at ground level. Something about a foot at eye-level being very unseemly.

“Did your witch heal you? As I recall, no other magic works on you,” which had caused quite the predicament for the young witch but it was sorted practically anyway. Hiro’s talents are not dedicated solely to magic which is a product of his education with his coven. Magic is meant to amplify and enhance skills and not to be a sole source of power because having only one strength is a weakness in itself and his coven abhors weakness.

@ueharahiro

Yazi walked straight up to the person who had once helped him after an unfortunate incident, no small talk, no ‘hi’, simply a beeline for him with a straight face. One that turned to a smile as he appeared in front of Hiro. “You! I have to thank you, because I forgot whether I did that before when you helped me with my foot.” He then grabbed his leg and held up his foot to the other. “Look, it’s in perfect working condition again! And I have since not fallen.” 

[ueharahiro]

The boy’s body slumps from the weight of some enchantment uttered, Hiro’s eyes lock onto Hasbaki’s lips. No time passes at all but the stillness of time is felt so strongly that it feels as if the next few seconds have been an eternity. And during that eternity, Hiro doesn’t stop looking at Has’ lips. He can’t hear it when he speaks, but he can’t unsee the subtle movement of his lips. It’s less the movement of his lips that he sees but rather the space between his lips parting and growing as if only exhaling.

A horrible grating scrape of chair legs against wood floor cracks through the air before the harsh clatter of furniture falling and Hiro is no longer seated. The song of a blade withdrawing from it’s sheath sings in the air precedes the clash of three blades connecting.

From a place that had not been noticed before for the simple reason that he did not want it to be noticed, a brilliant katana glimmers in the dim firelight of the restaurant, an extension of Hiro's arm, brandished against the edges of the twin knives raised against him.

Flames dance in the waves of the blade, making it appear chilling and engulfed, alive. Hiro’s dark eyes reflect this. Where once his eyes were deep, an abyss, swallowing everything, light and life, now they burn like coals, awakening. He smiles. It’s thin and dangerous, sharp on all corners. It gives the impression of one who knows the outcome already, not cocky but confident, the kind that doesn’t allow for even the suggestion of failure. There’s no room for anything else in the slant of his lips.

The offense of such slander can not be tolerated.

An insult in the face of an Uehara witch is not to be permitted.

He can not let it go.

This is part of the teachings of his coven. His family. Turning the other cheek is for the weak. He knows Hasbaki knows this. He can’t forget the subtle movement of his lips.

He can’t show mercy.

It’s only too easy to dispatch the twin blades from his attacker and send them flying. The point of his katana kisses the young coven member’s cheek. “You must have a death wish.” It’s not a threat but it sounds very much like one with the sharp edge of his katana glancing down from cheek to neck, against vulnerable skin. “You should know better than to come at me with a blade.”

The young witch stopped mid step, heart throbbing. The boy was unaware of the youth of the Uehara witch before him, all he saw when Hiro's eyes hit him was that they seemed to devour his thoughts up, prevent further action because they chilled him to the core. It felt as though Hiro was manipulating his mind without magic to imply a feeling of... disdain was not the right word, but likely how he would think of it later. It was a look of not indifference or superiority but something that sat between, something that implied even the raising of his gaze was a waste of the Uehara witch's time, that fending him off for a moment would be like stepping in filth.

He did not speak, not as Hasbaki's hand landed hard on his shoulder and he fell to his knees in front of the foreign witch. To those unobservant it would simply have seemed as if the weight of the action had forced him to the ground, but Hiro had been looking their way, no doubt seen the utterance of something on Hasbaki's lips, the way the boy had not been shoved to his knees but fell to them, muscles in his form losing strength to sink down.

In truth, Hasbaki's own heart was throbbing, unsure of how to proceed for the coven, but more so for Hiro. To force an apology from the young man's lips seemed like it would not resolve the true issue. In public an accusation had been made of the Uehara witch that was not a light one, at least not in the eyes of Hiro's coven.

Has gently tapped the boy's shoulder, fingers seemed to graze skin as his lips seemed to breath out a word so quietly none could hear it, even the witch himself. That was when the boy beneath him seemed to trash out of Hasbaki's grasp, the rest of Has' own company standing, prepared that he might attack Has and they would need to defend him, but instead he seemed to just jolt out of the hold, lunging in Hiro's direction despite the evident fear that his face had shown upon looking at him. "Whore," the boy accused with a deep growl as he pulled two blades from his robes, one in each hand.

Were Hasbaki to be worried on this attack he might have moved, flinched even, but instead he turned, back towards the table of the coven. In other circumstances, confusing ones like when there had been bodies strung up about town, he would have rushed to Hiro's aid, but he truly did not worry about the success of the young Aneji witch. He had to hope this disinterest was enough to show Hiro he was only allowing to occur what he felt needed to happen. Though perhaps Hiro was preoccupied by the seemingly rabid knife attack coming his way.

[ueharahiro]

His name floats through the air as if carried by a moth, innocent, harmless, but some moths eat poison and this one is clearly tainted. It does not take any magic to know this. Hiro can see it plainly through the spiderwebbing cracks of glass that distort the face on the other side. Features crack and shift, dim light from the flicker of a lantern casts eerie shadows through those cracks and makes the face look haunted.

Hiro only observes and waits.

The face continues to speak. Something about a curse, power, protection and somewhere there in the pretty words is a threat lurking. Hiro heard it before it was spoken, saw it in the glint of firelight in those eyes. Being known by a stranger is no surprise. It’s the weight of his family’s name that carries knowledge of him and the abilities of his family into the mouths of others, passed around as something weightless, to be exchanged and bartered. He’s not unknown to this. Warnings whispered in between lecture halls and training sessions, beaten into his shoulders by lashes of air and magic.

Power begets power.

It is the path his family set him on the moment of his birth. There was no room for weakness even then and there would be no place for it now.

Hiro stares back into those eyes flickering in the lantern light, his own a mirror black sea, unfeeling and cold. “You offer me a thorn and call it a rose but there are no petals,” his own voice gets carried through the air like an arrow, bolt straight. There’s nothing hidden there. Nothing to veil. “There is not even a scent,” he rises from the cushion he had been seated upon, legs unfolding to stand. His shoulders are square, his posture is straight, his hands rest easily in a loose hold behind his back and his steps make no sound as he walks toward the window.

Each step is light as air, the wood floor does not creak. He gets carried through the air as he walks just as much as he walks through the air. Clearly, he is someone who knows how to get somewhere unseen and unheard, but here, he lets himself be seen.

The paleness of his skin looks more prominent in the dark, barely warmed by the lantern. He is a ghost with black eyes and with his back to the fire, they reflect no light, they swallow it.

“You have not given me any options. Help you, or die,” his mouth turns down as if to frown but doesn’t but it twitches as if it could. “Why would I want to be special to someone,” he is only a breath away from the cracked glass, his exhale bounces off and fogs the window, voice an intimate whisper, “who doesn’t even bring me flowers?”

Knock Three Times for Trouble

(Starter with @ueharahiro) The address came scrawled in rust-colored ink on vellum older than most gods, passed to Doran through six intermediaries, three of whom were dead by the time he reached the final one. That was always the price of certain names. And Hiro Uehara was a name laced in a hush.

Young. Gifted. Cheridi-born. Quiet as grave moss, precise as poison. Doran hated him immediately.

He crouched on the windowsill like a gargoyle, balanced on the balls of his feet with the ease of a man who’d spent centuries walking places he wasn’t welcome. His coat clung to him, soaked to the bone, but Doran didn’t shiver. Cold was for the living.

Inside, the boy moved.

And gods, he was pretty. The kind of pretty that made old things twitch. Pale skin, fine hands, dark eyes that carried too much silence for someone that young. Magic crackled around him like static before a storm. A gift, Doran thought bitterly. Of course he has a gift. Born with it, probably. Doesn’t even know what it costs yet.

Doran tapped a knuckle lightly on the glass.

Nothing.

He smiled without warmth, then curled his fingers slowly. Let the claws come out and tapped again, this time with the edge of one sharp point. A thin crack spread from the center, delicate as spider silk.

He liked the sound it made.

The boy looked up. Good.

“Hello, Hiro,” Doran said, letting the name roll off his tongue like a blade sheathed in velvet. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything delicate… an incantation, a lover, tea with your ancestors.”

He leaned closer, nose nearly brushing the glass, watching the boy's reaction. There was none. Of course not, Doran thought, annoyed. Pretty things always think they’re safe behind windows. They forget that glass breaks.

“I need a healer. A breaker of bindings,” he continued, letting his voice curl and flick like smoke. “And I’m told you’re both. Youngest Uehara, prodigy emissary, bearer of a bloodline thick with old things even my kind whisper about.”

He raised one hand slowly, theatrically, and swept rain from his cheek like a courtier at a ball. “You should be flattered. I don’t beg often.”

But he wasn’t begging, not really. That was the lie he wore best: humility stitched over hunger.

He’s so young, Doran thought, eyeing the witch’s unlined face. He doesn’t know what it’s like yet. What it costs, what it takes, to hold power for longer than you’re meant to. He thinks the world will still be kind when he’s done with it.

“If you fix me. If you undo this charming little curse that turns my bite into rot, I’ll give you anything. Power, protection, one of my castles in the drowned isles. Take your pick. Hell, I’ll even give you freedom from your name, if you want it. I can do that, you know.”

Then he tapped the glass again, harder. The crack deepened. Just enough to show he could do worse. He smiled.

“But if you don’t,” he said, voice dipping into something colder, “I will hunt down everyone you’ve ever loved. Quietly. Creatively. I’ve had six hundred years to get good at endings.”

And I’m tired, he didn’t say. Tired of being the echo of my own voice. Tired of losing what I make. Tired of screaming into the dark and hearing nothing scream back.

“You’re not special to me, Hiro Uehara. But you could be.”

[ueharahiro]

Witch boy.

Hiro's ears prick at over hearing this over the din of the restaurant ambiance. Hasbaki's response is inaudible. It's unfortunate for Hiro how easily his attention is diverted from his task. Instead now of watching his mark, he stares unseeing straight in front of him putting all his effort into straining his mortal ears to hear more what is happening on the other side of the restaurant. Fortunately for him, the young witch conversing with Hasbaki seems to have a loud voice, their words carrying with a natural resonance with the weight of crude words.

How many times he has to fuck you...

There's an inflection there.

Maybe I could be more convincing.

Hiro wets his lips absently and reaches for his tea. He looks the very picture of an unaffected, rich youth, simply out for a light lunch. The food on his plate barely touched safe for a few corners of the fish and steamed vegetables picked at. A bowl of bread rests before him, untouched. Both hands hold his tea delicately in the proper placements and as he breathes a cooling breath across its surface, it ripples. He does not need to touch it to know it's temperature shifting from steaming heat to frigid cold, magic in his exhale. Water is his element.

This Aneji witch approaching appears in Hiro's peripheral vision and the unsipped tea gets set mindfully back onto the table. His eyes slide beneath the sharp slant of his lids to land onto him. There's total darkness in his gaze, it swallows all the light in the room and returns nothing. An abyss deep as the deepest unknown reaches of the sea stares back at this witch, cold and oppressive with all the weight of the ocean.

Only as the server severed their sight did Hasbaki return his eyes to that of his companions. Men of varying complexions and features, some of these features seemed evidently contrary to one another, an upturned thin nose with wide set eyes, some hues of red but no horns, others with scales at their jawlines but no tail to be seen. Has had always assumed the variety of parentages amongst the coven members was a show that while none of them had their mother's with them surely love must have been the purpose behind bedding women unlike his own mother, a hag as she had been considered by the coven, a woman who needed her child taken from her so she did not devour him. Even now it was only a trickling thought in his head that one of the men there should have had horns from his mother, but instead where they should have grown were ink marked runes that indicated some block.

"We only meant...it is sometimes nice to leave," one of the ones who had yet to speak up indicated. He was much smaller than the rest. Lacking tattoos on the parts of his skin that could be seen, hands, neck and face clean, while the others all seemed to have some poking out, if not more. He was a deep navy blue, his hair cut short like all the men at the table, but his eyes seemed like stars, a pearlescent blue for his irises in a sea of deep navy, darker than his skin, where his whites should have been. He was also the most atypical looking amongst them because though he shared a darkness to his tone that Hasbaki had, he clearly had so much of his mother to him, far more than any of the others.

"You're all too easily tempted," he lied, and so his eye contact with the other male only lasted a moment or so before he needed to glance away, towards the doors to the kitchen, as though he were simply waiting for food.

Most of the men stayed quiet but one scoffed, the same who had proudly bragged, his light caramel colour indicated no specificity to a mother of any parentage but Hasbaki knew his mother, much like Has' own, had been a witch. "You want to say we're easily tempted?" the man asked. "How long have you been sneaing around with that witch boy?"

Hasbaki's eyes thinned, trying not to look in Hiro's direction, but from the way the other's at the table glanced the other witch's way it was clear they all knew Hiro was there, potentially listening. "You'll want to stop talking," Habaki indicated in a plain tone, concealing his concern as best he could.

"No, I think we should go say 'hi,' ask how many times he has to fuck you before he'll give up what you really want," the man stood, immediately intending to head in Hiro's direction. "Maybe I could be more convincing..." It was only then that Has stood from his seat, the wood clattering against the floor, the coven member half way to Hiro with a smirk on his face, other's at the table nervous. It was one thing for Hasbaki's Uncle to speak to him lie this, and another for one of the coven members to do so.

[ueharahiro]

Nagumo Shoma

[ueharahiro]

Perhaps it is her own keenness, but Hiro is silently grateful she seems to catch on to his unspoken request for secrecy. Whatever public front he shows must maintain his role as his family's heir, even if he doubts any of his coven members are observing him, there is never any certainty that they aren't. His coven is, after all, incredibly mistrusting. It is how they had grown so strong. Through blocking themselves off from forming attachments against others and focusing instead on a strict regime that emphasized results, it is only natural that even their own heir would be subject to the same scrutiny. Hiro has never felt the gentle touch of favoritism.

As the pair make their way to the back room, Hiro passes by some of the other volunteers, avoiding their gaze but feeling them on his back. Once they are situated at a table and the room they're in closes off, dulling the soft noiseless chatter from the room they'd just left, he finally responds, "Yes."

As she would know, his coven did not necessarily approve of mind magic. It is why he has always been so skeptical of her own abilities as a seer. Then he considers his response and adds on, "In part. The other reason I don't trust him is because he is... well... himself." Hiro can't help but survey the room, dark eyes passing over everything in a languid manner that appears as if he is only casually glancing around idly but in truth he is accessing everything for threats. Every dark corner could house a listening ear. The rafters could house a body. "Have you ever met him?" Hiro asks as his ink dark eyes land on her.

It does make Tajhana smile somewhat to know that at least Hiro perceives the person she saw as the person he is thinking on. With little specificity between them it shows once more that Hiro, to some degree, knows his own heart, even if he feels pulled in an opposing direction by duty.

"Persistence can be appealing," she acknowledged, her hand holding out the bowls so he might place the food he had before him inside. There was certainly a line with it that needed to be drawn, but in the instance of Hiro, and perhaps this man, it read as less of a persistence against the other's desires as it was against the environments both were in. He seemed to focus his wording however, eyes on her, in a way that suggested her use of appealing was maybe a step over, not because they seemed angry at her but because his own words lacked the same romanticism.

Each bowl in hand Tajhana stepped away from their station, a suggestion they perhaps eat away from prying eyes and listening ears, to take a seat in one of the back rooms. She doubted anyone in his family would be concerned with him being alone with her, either through an awareness of her history that would rule out any interest in Hiro, or an awareness on their part of who Hiro himself was, even if this aspect of him went unspoken.

"The invasiveness of his magic is why you don't trust him?" she asked, doubting that someone from the Uehara coven would be concerned with someone besting them in any skill they could match.

[ueharahiro]

🤤😍

[ueharahiro]

Hiro noticed the group of males the moment they arrived. The instant they walked through the doors. It wasn't purely due to a particular member of their company that his attention was uniquely drawn to but the simple fact that he was aware of everything right now. Hiro did not come here to be idle. He was watching someone. Some high lord from Withermore come to Destarin that his family wished to know more about. Hiro had been making a study of this man for the bulk of the day. Now he was making a study of the Aneji coven at their table too.

It would have been easy even if he was unfocused. Their banter was raucous at its most quiet moments and seemed to not follow the usual pattern of liveliness within the restaurant. When the chatter in the restaurant grew quiet, they grew louder. When the chatter in the restaurant grew thunderous, they grew quiet. It was an ebb and flow of volume that rendered it so that there was constant noise happening all at once with hardly a moment for an auditory break.

Until one moment when the volumes did align. Hiro hears the firm voice of Hasbaki, scolding authority to his peers and finally then did they quiet in time with the rest. A pull of focus lures the dark of Hiro's eyes, sliding across the partly obscured view of the restaurant, across tables occupied by various others of lesser importance, bypassing plates of food, bowls and goblets, wooden pillars and support beams decorated with trailing green vines that invite nature indoors. For one kinetic moment, their eyes could meet from across the room and then be washed away by the passing of a server in between and the volume of the restaurant rises again.

Faces Worn || Hiro&Has

They enjoyed it, he could hear it in them as one caressed the hand of the server at the resturant. A celebration. A gift from his Uncle for a job well done. Hasbaki had his intended goal with Hiro but he was taking too long and his Uncle had required a show of his efforts. He'd been asked to escort the other witches out of town and...

Hasbaki felt sick thinking on it.

They didn't.

The witch whose hand held that of the waitress started speaking in the strange tongue of their god, smiling at her. The magic was intended to flood her mind with false memories of him, but they weren't so good at it as other's in the coven and instead seemed to simply make the girl confused, watching as she fluttered her lashes and yanked back her hand.

"Next time," the witch said with a shrug, picking up the wine that had been brought to them. Five, including Hasbaki, sat at the round Crirthan style table, beautiful but worn cloth covering it, bread and butters and oils on the table as they waited for meals. Each had a drink, except Has who had abstained as their leader, insisting he needed to make sure they got home in one piece, and that was for more than the mission, but he simply did not feel safe with his mind so pliable around them.

"People here are just too used to us," the same witch pointed out as Hasbaki sat silently, not eating, not drinking. "That's why leaving is so good, they'll never remember their daughter." No. None of them would remember their loss. Hasbaki had made sure of that. While the other's had thrown mental blasts at the gorgon girl until she had needed to close her eyes and their blades could come down on her, Hasbaki had spent his time making the town forget her, forget those she had turned to stone, forget the girl she'd been before she became the monster.

"Oh yeah, and you did any of that," another pointed out, throwing some of the bread across the table. A few in the restaurant seemed offended by the display but they weren't the only rowdy table. "Has did all the hard work. I could barely feel you in her head," the same accused with a smirk.

"You couldn't feel -"

"Shut up," Hasbaki finally uttered. "None of you could have made them forget. Took five of you to bring down one gorgon. My Uncle would be ashamed."

They fell silent, and that's what he wanted, his eyes washing over the room. If they had begun to talk once more, Hasbaki didn't hear it. No, he had noticed a familiar face in the resturant, dark eyes lingering. Hiro. All he could think was 'not here, not now, not with them.'

@ueharahiro

[ueharahiro]

His cheeks warm at her gentle prodding, wordlessly and dutifully filling the offered bowl with a portion of the food from his pot. Regret in bringing up this topic clings to the corners of his lips, making them tight. "He is the one you saw," flat, calm, measured, no hint of emotion visible in the line of his brow. Though the internal pounding of his heart betrays him and it takes an extra second of mental fortitude to calm this down to something reasonable and unaffected.

There is not much he can say, not much that is safe. His words must be chosen carefully and precisely and be without emotion as if he were simply speaking about any other encounter.

"There is a lot that makes him interesting," he balances the wooden serving spoon across the top of the pot so it won't fall in, "and he is persistent." Hiro turns the jet black of his eyes that betray nothing onto her, "An interesting rival.. I can understand why my coven dislikes his so. His magic is.. invasive."

Tajhana's head tilted, the line before them now practically a scattering of one personal occasionally, and wondered what Hiro had perceived of her connection with his grandfather upon meeting. A short consideration in her mind to ask him but also a desire to not upset him further about his own familial connections. The woman's own were long gone, it was not normal within her family to live as long as Tajhana had and she had never desired offspring, so she was, in truth, alone, but she did remember being loved by her family, even when they desired her to excel as Hiro's family obviously wished for him.

The woman softly smiled at the notion of their closeness though, picking up a small bowl for herself and another for Hiro and resting them to the side. "In the past, I imagine I wouldn't know the man at all now." People could fall back into old patterns, maybe both would make reckless choices in each other's presence, but they had not stayed in contact and the way Hiro was so afraid to seek his own happiness Tajhana did not believe she could ignore as much as she could back then, back then his choices had only affected him, now they were hurting his grandson.

"Interesting is an amusing description," Tajhana smiled, aware that most interactions of romantic interest were described typically with some heightened emotion or physical attraction. Proceeding with her dishing out food for them to offered each bowl to Hiro, so he might put in some of the food he had been handing out. "What makes them interesting?" she asked, bangles knocking against the edge of the bowls.