Description: Namie comes over to Seijyun for lunch, and also to point out that she knows that Miki has been behind recent beating up of martial artists at Taiyo. Miki explains her motivation, and the two of them eat steak. They discuss how to figure out what to do with one's life, and what their friendship with each other has taught them. Then Namie jumps off the balcony.
Ah, the towering grandeur of Seijyun. The ornate decor, the majestic architecture, the masterful artwork. It's just about enough to make a girl swoon.
Namie doesn't though; she's been here before. Instead she only walks around with an wide eyes and mouth open in awe by it's magnificence, head turning left and right to take in the sights. If her Taiyo uniform wasn't enough of a sore thumb, this tourist attitude is enough to draw quite a few stares from Seijyun girls who are used to the pomp. Some stare with confusion, some in annoyance, and still others with amused contempt.
If any of this bothers her, Namie doesn't show any signs of it, though she is paying more attention to the other girls fancy clothes than their reactions to her specifically. Thus the snickering and comments are missed or ignored, and she continues forward, making her way to the second floor and towards the balcony where lunch awaits. While normally she might have brought a large enough bento to share with her friend, she realizes it couldn't possibly compare to the chefs of this school. Likewise she's classed herself up to fit in perhaps a bit better; a pair of black lace leggings rather than something brighter.
Upon finally reaching the balcony she sends a bright smile towards her friend, "Thank you so much for inviting me! Your school is so amazing; I feel like a princess just being here!"
Miki sits on the balcony, looking down upon the schoolgrounds. She ordered steak for both herself and Namie, mainly because it has a lot of protein, and protein is good for muscle mass. Or perhaps because she's been wanting red meat recently - she did order it rare, although she ordered her friend's steak a little more well done. Seeing Namie approach, she stands up, smiles at her, bows. "I'm glad you feel that royal power flowing through your veins, my friend."
She sits back down, and moves up one arm to pick up a steak knife, the other one taking hold of her fantastically long sleeve and holding it out of the way. She begins to cut her meat into bite-sized chunks with delicate precision.
"I must admit, I'm surprised that you didn't request to come before. I assumed you weren't interested. Please forgive me for that error."
Namie returns the bow, intentionally doing so a little lower than her friend. Once she's straightened back out she moves to the place set for her, taking a seat and staring openly for a moment at the steak, clearly not having had one for herself in quite some time and trying to be discreet about it. "No wonder you're so driven towards excellence, schooling in a setting like this."
With a shake of her head she deflects the apology, "No, it's okay! I normally wouldn't want to intrude, but we've seen so little of each other lately that I thought it'd be a nice chance." Nevermind she should be taking a math lesson right now- so long as she does well on the test it's standard Taiyo fare.
Picking up her fork and knife, used enough to them if slightly awkward, she cuts a small piece of steak and eats it, eyes widening again before practically tearing up from joy. "Miki! Is this... Kobe beef?!" she asks afterwards, quickly taking another bite and making a silly smile while chewing it, having momentarily forgot her manners.
Miki blinks at that question. Why would Seijyun serve another kind of beef? "...Yes?" She finishes slicing her steak into small bite-sized chunks, and lowers her knife, wipes both sides of the blade carefully on her napkin, and sets it down, her other hand moving in unison to hold her sleeve in place. She picks up her fork with three fingers, and moves it over to sink the tines just enough into the steak so that it'll stay put on it's trip upwards.
"As far as I'm concerned, you're never an intrusion, Namie." Her eyes remain on her friend as she raises the steak bite to her mouth, opens her mouth the exact right amount to slide it in without it touching her lips. She sets her fork down, chewing so quietly and delicately it's hard to even notice unless you're looking for it. She swallows. "How are things going for you at Taiyo? Is Lana still holding the same crush towards her teacher? Have you been finding new and interesting information out?"
Namie blushes a little at the implication intoned in the answer, having forgotten just how exclusive the school actually was for a moment. "I-I didn't know if maybe there was a better kind of beef than Kobe!" She comments to save face, "Ahah-hahahaha..." blowing it by laughing nervously and a bit too loud. Blushing more she goes quiet and simply eats more of her ludicrously expensive steak, determined to enjoy it even while her face burns in embarrassment.
The moment is saved by a timely compliment, the Taiyo student giving a bright smile in return, "Aw, thanks! I'm really happy you're not embarrassed to have me over. I know you're not the type of person who would be, but it still means a lot to me." She eats some more, her own manners once more decent, though with nowhere near the refinement of the girl sitting across from her. "Lana? I don't think so. I think she got over her crush pretty quick after being teased for a whole week." Making a small shrug and letting out a soft sigh she adds, "She wasn't very discreet about it, so naturally it was more than me that figured it out."
Then the normally peppy girl goes slightly quiet, closing her eyes and calmly eating another couple pieces of her amazing steak before nodding, "I did hear something interesting, though. Rumor has it someone wearing a black mask attacked some students the other day. Can you believe it?" Her voice is placid and tranquil; conspicuously so.
Perhaps that unease is part of the reason Miki made that comment.
The Seijyun student smiles back at her friend, and continues to eat at a glacial pace as she listens, more focused on manners than her hunger. She shakes her head slightly as she hears about Lana's misfortune, more caring about her friends feeling's on the matter than the girl's predicament itself. "How unfortunate for Lana. Hopefully she can find some new desire of her heart to become enamored with. Or, alternately, discover another thing in life to care about."
She raises a single eyebrow at Namie's question about the black mask attacker. "Yes, I can believe that. There are people who care more about their own goals than harming the people they don't care about." She pauses. "Have these attacks been causing any problems for you, my friend?"
"Oh, no, they haven't caused any problems for me. Some people are worried what it might mean... but it wouldn't be the first time someone has challenged a martial arts club to test their skills, and no one was seriously injured." Namie sits back in her seat and opens her eyes back up, looking at Miki with a contemplative gaze. "Some of our parents are worried, though. Talking about how things are getting more and more dangerous all the time. It isn't so much what happened this time as what might happen in the future." She lets out a slightly exasperated sigh, making it pretty clear exactly which parents are talking that way.
After taking another bite of steak and washing it down with a drink of water, dabbing her lips with her napkin afterwards, she shrugs. "I was a little disappointed, to be honest. Normally it'd be pretty fun to try and figure out who it was, but this time it was an open and shut case. I'd rather my friends didn't go around beating people up for no reason... but I know there is one." With that Namie tilts her head a little bit, staring at Miki's mouth as she tries to eat with particular concentration.
Miki nods slightly. "Yes, I can see why parents would be worried about that sort of thing. Many parents care a lot about their children and one of their main desires is to protect them. Perfectly understandable that this unusual event would leave them worried for the future."
She takes another tiny bite of steak, chews it, swallows. This takes perhaps ten seconds. "If I was the strongest person in the world, I wonder what I'd want to do with it. Is it more fun to destroy people and civilizations, watch them scream in agony and beg for mercy? Is it more fun to help people and civilizations, to support and guide and protect them?" She shrugs her shoulders a bit. "I wonder if that's the sort of thing they're thinking about, testing on a smaller scale before it means too much."
She smiles at Namie. "Have you tried both of those paths with your own capabilities, my friend?"
After a moment of consideration Namie shakes her head, "I haven't, but I don't think I'd need to. I don't like seeing other people hurt or suffering, so I wouldn't even consider destroying them. And besides, there are only so many civilizations to destroy. Once they're all gone all you're left with is a boring planet of dirt and ruins, and since you're the one who made them there's not even a point to exploring it all. But if you try making them stronger there's maybe no limit to how great they could become. All the different cultures, with their foods, clothes, buildings and artwork? You'd never run out of things to enjoy if every civilization was at it's peak at once!"
She leans forward and has another bite of her steak, almost having finished it off by now, and sits back in delight. "Kobe beef is one of Japan's greatest creations. It's completely amazing, and it's just one piece of one civilization. And aside from that, even if you were the strongest person in the world you wouldn't necessarily be able to destroy it. You'd have to be not only the strongest, but strong enough to beat everyone else at once. Power like that... I think everyone would agree they'd have to be a God of some kind, and Gods usually find more interesting things to do than crush ants."
"These are important considerations, no doubt. Personally, I'm not so cultured that I'm attached to Kobe beef or silk clothes and so forth." Miki pauses, raises her fork a bit in the air for emphasis. "But yes, destroying everything might put things into a boring state. Destroying smaller things, however... perhaps not. Perhaps that would just make things more interesting."
"Neccessarily, we live in a world where a God has not decided to crush all the ants." She spears a piece of steak with her fork, takes it up to her lips, and devours it. "In a world where a God had decided to destroy everyone, we would not be alive." Another moment of silence.
"I'm beginning to think I like helping some people, but I also like to see some people suffer. Perhaps that is common, however, even some people who declare themselves 'good' seem to have such motives."
"I suppose it might, but the world has a way of destroying smaller things all on it's own. The Han, the Ming, the Song, the Yuan... there's been so many empires that have fallen, and that's only China. Unless people try really hard to work together I don't think that's going to stop anytime soon."
With a soft hum Namie considers the question, tucking one of her ankles behind the other out of a need for movement while remaining polite. "Of course there are," she responds with a small laugh. "There are tons of people who do the right thing for the wrong reason. I'm sure there's tons of people who join the police just to be able to beat someone up when they commit a crime. And you -know- there are some people who aspire to immaculate purity just so they can look down their nose at everyone else, not because they're truly moral. There are also people who steal apples for their starving little brothers. You'd be really weird if you were completely one way or the other, Miki."
"The world also has a way of creating stuff on it's own, as well." Miki eats silently for a little while, back to her delicate, focused style of eating. "I think a lot of people do what they think they're supposed to do, rather than what they truly wish to do. Seeing as I only have one life, I don't want to make that mistake."
She smiles at Namie. "You seem to have already figured out that you want to learn all the secrets, and you don't want to hurt people. But I'm not that advanced yet. Perhaps one day I'll catch up to that kind of certainty of what I want to do with my life."
A little more eating. "Do you just kick for the sake of kicking, my friend? Or is there a goal you wish to accomplish with your kicks?"
"That's true too, I suppose. There has to be a civilization in order for it to fall. The thing is? 'It takes a good carpenter to build a barn, but any jackass can kick it down'. Creating and fixing is always harder than destroying." Namie listens to her friend and finishes off her steak, eating slower now that the end is clearly in sight and wanting to enjoy it.
When the question is posed to her she laughs, "To be perfectly honest? I do kick for the sake of kicking; it's great! It's fun for me, and hopefully it's even fun for the person I'm kicking. I've... never thought about trying to accomplish anything important through fighting before, but I guess it's possible." She finishes her last bite while looking contemplative, putting her fork back down before bowing forward a little in her seat. "Thank you for the meal, it was truly delicious."
"...you know what, though? I actually think that's a worthy goal. Doing something that's fun for you, something that's fulfilling for not just you, but others as well. How amazing would it be to be able to have so much fun and bring that joy to others. Especially your friends!" Suddenly she looks slightly abashed, blushing and scratching her cheek before adding, "I guess you did that for me already, didn't you? You got something you wanted in a sparring partner, but you told me the secret I craved. And moreover, you showed me just how much fun fighting could be."
She stands up suddenly, getting out of her seat before offering a low bow to her friend and holding it.
"Thank you, Miki. Truly."
Miki, not slowing down just because she happens to be running low on her plate of perfectly normal Kobe beef, manages to finish her food during this speech, and smiles as Namie tells her about what she did to help bring Namie joy and fun. "Before I met you, I didn't think that far ahead. Power was my entire goal, the only thing in the world I could see, and I had no idea of what I'd do with it. I just knew I must possess with it." She pauses. "Well. I still don't know what I want to do with my power. But there is one thing that I know, beyond the fact that I must be the strongest." She closes her eyes for a moment "I want to use my power to help my friends whenever they need it."
She smiles at Namie without reservation, which has the unfortunate side effect of showing off her fangs a little bit. "Thank you, my friend. For teaching me the value of friendship." She bows deeply, then straightens up. As she straightens up, she has a more refined expression as she stares at Namie. As if thinking about that fateful meeting of theirs is making her contemplate the more serious things in life. How much could be different if that one event hadn't happened.
"...given the current time, you should probably be getting back to Taiyo, unless you want to miss a second class."
Namie straightens up and smiles radiantly when her sentiment is returned, "I think that's one of the nicest things I've ever heard you say! You really don't need to thank me though; I'm really glad I was able to help you, and that I'm able to have a friend like you, Miki." She stands there for a moment in pleased reflection, humming softly when the time is mentioned to her. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone, checking the time and then nodding, "You're right, I need to leave. I don't even want to be -late- for PE. If you ever invite me again we'll have to make sure I don't end up against a hard time limit like this. For now, I gotta run."
She turns away from Miki and takes a few steps forward, not towards the balcony exit, but towards the railing. She looks back over her shoulder and grins, "It was nice seeing you again!"
And with that she leaps forward, kicking off the railing and jumping down from, "Wheeeeee!" Tumbling once she hits the ground, she rolls a couple of times and then pops back up to her feet at a full run. She laughs hysterically as she goes, ponytail bouncing behind her, knowing she's just destroyed any decorum she'd manage to build, all on account of wanting to jump from the balcony.
It was totally worth it.
Log created on 01:18:08 01/11/2015 by Miki, and last modified on 02:05:09 01/12/2015.