Milkshakes! Part II

Kit was standing outside the milk shoppe wearing her typical uniform.

The musician felt guilty for allowing so much time to pass without checking up on Chigetsu. She had meant to congratulate him on the exams right after he had been crowned champion, but so much had come up since then. Her sister Katsumi had been dealing with some kind of monster; Headmaster Sukimori had inspired her to begin a superhuman training regimen; she was working hard at developing her fashion label; she was still playing music and practicing for competitive auditions; and then of course, there were her duties as a shinobi. She couldn't find the time to meet up with her friend and it had been slowly weighing on her. Not long after she got back from shutting down the pits, she sent word to Chigetsu.

Spoiler:

Kit wasn't the type to end a letter so informally but she knew Chi was easily overwhelmed, or at least, that was her last impression of him. The lad had been so easily spooked back then. When she learned he was in exams she didn't expect him to get very far. He deprecated his own skills and lacked the self-confidence to operate a jukebox. Nevertheless, she had seen his name on the Finals Tournament bracket and she had watched him dominate the opposition in the Championship Round. It was all rather shocking. Kit had come to the conclusion that either Chigetsu had been deliberate misleading her about his skills or he went into some kind of battle trance when it was time to go to work. Many people looked at Kit and assumed she was a dainty weakling. She certainly didn't carry herself as a lethal threat and yet she was. The same could be true for Chigetsu although that didn't explain his inaccurate self-assessment. Then there was of course what the tabloids were saying.

Dating the Mizukage? A Boy In Disguise? Barely Seen In Public?

She hated reading that trash but she couldn't help but wonder why the rags were publishing such scandalous material about her friend. Either he had been lying to her, the papers were guilty of slander, or there was some mixture of truth in all of it. She decided that rather than be angry, she'd do what a good friend would and confront him about it. Gently at first but with greater vigor if she sensed deceit. For now, she'd treat him the same as she left him. As someone who just needed encouragement. He had been there for her when they were total strangers so she'd definitely be there for him as a friend.

It was rare that Chigetsu received mail. Legitimate mail, at least. Bills still came, along with the general stack of letters. The Hozuki Clan stipend came every month on schedule, various advertisements and junk mail, other meaningless pieces of trash that were either left to rot in his mailbox or quickly put where they belonged. So it wasn’t immediately that he noticed the letter that Kitsuki had addressed to him. Infact, it was by pure luck that he managed to read it before the date that she had suggested he come meet her. Just by chance he had stopped by that mailbox to clean it out, and the letter from Kit had stood out among the others. It had been sliced open and the contents read as quickly as he could manage- After all, it had been about a year since he had heard or seen anything from Kitsuki. Maybe more than that- It had only been very recently that he returned to shinobi life. This long hiatus he took following his victory in the Chunin Exams felt like going into hibernation,

Things had seemed so bright for a while. Making tons of friends, getting a girlfriend, winning the Chunin Exams- He didn’t want to reflect back on how things had gone wrong. The swirling doubts and self-loathing that had plagued him was something he tried to suppress whenever possible, and more often than not it meant not allowing himself to be caught up in thoughts of the past.

Though just by arriving at this milk shoppe a burst of nostalgia crashed over him. It had been the same one that they had gone to on that day they had met, after finishing their mission at the Kirigakure Academy. Just by catching the outline of the little building on the outskirts of the academy district on town made memories begin flooding back, and the same was true of when he finally came face to face with Kitsuki once again. That situation in the academy that had led to their first meeting, the television announcement that revealed Hana Kaguya’s appointment to Mizukage and her place in the raid on Iron, felt like they had happened years and years and years ago.

Chi’s sense of fashion hadn’t changed at all in all the time apart, and neither had Kit’s. Although Chigetsu would be significantly dressed down compared to Kit, wearing an oversized purple hoodie together with a pair of blac slacks. It was an odd combination, but Chigetsu had never exactly been known for abiding by fashion norms. As he approached a weak wave would be given in his friend’s direction, along with an awkward smile.

“Kitsuki…", he began, clearly not knowing what to say. “It’s been a long time.”

Kit lit up when she saw her friend. He appeared just as meek as ever but that didn't bother her one bit. Like the father who had welcomed his prodigal son home, Kitsuki walked over to Chigetsu with open arms and gave him a warm embrace. She didn't need to be formal with him and she felt that if she were, it'd only intimidate him.

"It has Chi!"

She said with more enthusiasm than she was used to. She even used the shortened version of Chigetsu's name as a reminder of how familiar she felt with him. After the hug, she'd stand back and look him up and down. For a person who had won the Chuunin Exams and maintained a relationship with the Mizukage, Chigetsu looked like his plain old self.  

"We have a lot of catching up to do but first...." Kit opened the door for Chigetsu so that he could walk inside. "The most decadent of milkshakes await your palate Grand Champion" Kitsuki hoped the joke would loosen Chi's nerves. She hated seeing him so uptight, awkward, and unsure of himself. It reminded her of her freshman year at the WASP and Kit didn't like to be reminded of that time."

The embrace caught Chigetsu off guard. Kitsuki signaled her intentions clearly enough so that he had no right to be caught off guard by it, but for some reason his mind didn’t make the connection between the gesture and intent until it actually happened. If he hadn’t been so braindead at the moment he would have been mentally laughing at his own lack of perception. The entire situation made him feel like a clown once he realized what was happening. He was stiff as a board, nervous and tense from so many sources of passive anxiety flooding together at the same time- He felt like he had so much surface tension that he was ready to pop like a water balloon, which was a metaphor that only made sense for someone from the Hozuki Clan.

He almost didn’t know what to do in the embrace, but after a few moments the rust would seem to melt from his blood, and he would return the hug. Logically speaking he knew he didn’t have any reason to act like this- Kitsuki was his friend, maybe his only friend. Even if it had been a long time since they had last seen each other it wasn’t like there was any reason for him to be acting so nervous, right? It was one thing to think these reassuring things and another to live them out though, and already swirling in his mind worst-case scenario thoughts were beginning to hook into him as doubts and worries.

“G-Grand Champion? What do you- Oh. Oh, that’s right…” He had actually forgotten about it for a moment, being confused by what she had called him up until half way through his sentence. That was what he got for not thinking. He would slip inside as she held the door open, back into the nostalgic interior of the milkshake shoppe. It was somewhere that Chigetsu used to come to a lot when he was younger, and of course that one time with Kit, but it had been a long time since he had been… Well, anywhere.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a milkshake. Or really… Done anything.”

Having taken a few steps in, Chigetsu would only stare at the interior blankly, as if momentarily lost in thought.

“Ah… Sorry. We do need to catch up. It’s been so long…” With an apologetic smile he would begin to one of the booths, although not before he was sure Kit would be following. “How have you been?”

Kitsuki gave a genuine smile as Chigetsu stepped through the doors, but underneath it, her mind was fraught with worry. Chigetsu seemed to remember their initial outing at the shoppe, but apparently it was overshadowed by a period of inactivity. She said nothing but she found herself concerned over Chigetsu's rise and fall. It was all so strange. He had reached the pinnacle of high society only to withdraw within himself. Kitsuki entered the establishment and followed him to the booth. She kept both hands clasped behind her back as she answered:

"I've been doing great! Training hard...seeing you get to work in the Championship Round was really inspiring. I've been hitting the training grounds from dawn to dusk just to catch up to you and Rini"

The pair were like friendly rivals to her. Despite their obvious shortcomings, they had surpassed their limits and turned themselves into warriors of the highest calibre. She couldn't afford to be left behind.

"I've been working on some fashion designs...perfecting my armour crafting and getting some practice in music where I can. Oh! And of course playing the occasional recital or two."

Kit had been up to a lot. She had been a very busy girl and she kept her activities short lest she make Chigetsu feel inadequate. The truth was that she was stretched to her maximum. She had been going on missions, fulfilling her higher level duties as the PR Specialist of the Princess Council, and getting her own squad of students together. There was so much to do and so little time. If it weren't for Zizz, the musician might have let something slip. Fortunately, Kitsuki was a master of time management. She could estimate the amount of time any given task would take down to the microsecond. She could thus organize her schedule with a level of accuracy that even the best project managers could only dream of. Of course, with all of this productivity and chrono-management, Kit always made time to waste time with her friends.

She followed him over to a booth and slid in across from him. She folded her hands and tried to set him at ease with a lovely smile. The first thing she wanted to ask about was his gender. She had heard from tabloids that he had been born a young man but she knew that such rags often lied and if there was one thing that might make him run away, it was spewing gossip about him to his face. She'd drop that topic for now. Instead, she opted to politely broach the subject of his skill and immediate recluse after winning the biggest prize any genin could hope for.

"So Chi...what have you been up to? I know you've been taking it easy recently." Rather than calling him a shut-in or imply that he was a prisoner of his own self-deprecation, she framed it as a choice based in leisure. "You must have worked really hard on the Exams because the Chigetsu that I thought I knew and the Chigetsu that I saw out there were two different people. Both super cute and friendly but the latter was so strong and focused."

She didn't want to outright call him a liar but she didn't want him to think her stupid. She remembered how hard he had seemed on his own skills, how not confident he was in even when teaching a group of schoolchildren, and yet he had dominated each section of the Chuunin Exams. She had to get to the bottom of how he had gotten so good or why he had lied about his skills in the first place.