[OPEN]

[myscarsmiles]

WHO: Kristoph Gavin [myscarsmiles] and hopefully lots of others.
WHAT: Nothing in particular. It's an open thread. Get something to eat, chat with your friends. Go wild. No explosions, please.
WHERE: Un Morso Di Mangiare: A 24-hour diner: Vie Marsala and Via Aspromonte
WHEN: A couple of days after the fashion show: anytime, really! Just say when in the title

Comments

[ombrosa]

Walking into the diner, Kai pulled her red hat further down over her head. Prosciutto had told her to be inconspicuous after all, but she had a sinking feeling that this wasn't quite what he had meant. One hand shoved deep into the pocket of her skirt, she clenched hard the small scrap of paper in between her fingers and tried her best to recall the meager notes she had written on it. Chino Manccino, 25, light hair, dark skin. Eats a late lunch every day at Un Morso Di Mangiare.Quickly scanning the crowd, Kai saw nobody who matched the description; she thought hard to remember why exactly she hadn't just brought the notes Prosciutto had given her, but it was too late for that now, she was already here. There was cleaning to be done, and though it didn't need to be done right away, she had hoped to have studied the young man and his habits, in the hopes of finding an opportunity that she could eventually exploit

[myscarsmiles]

Kristoph snatched his journal off the table before anything could destroy the writing on its precious pages, but luckily, nothing was startled enough to spill. With a relieved breath, he placed the journal back down and would have ignored the bump and the offender entirely if not for the curious speech pattern. Something about it caught his attention and he glanced up at the voice's owner, a scrawny teenage girl. It wasn't the type of person he would usually associate with, but.. something about her nagged at her.

Ah!

"Kai?" He asked, closing the book and slipping it into a pocket unobtrusively. "The cleaner?"

[ombrosa]

At the mention of the word cleaner, Kai narrowed her eyes and took a small step backwards, her body posture now crouched inwards like a animal ready to strike. With a short glance at her wrist, she summoned Sky High, raising her hand slightly in the small space between them.

"How do you know this?" she asked with suspicion. "You do not know Kai, and she does not know you."

[myscarsmiles]

"As a matter of fact.." he studied her for a long moment, totally unaware of how much danger he was in. She didn't appear to be much, but he did sense something about her, a certain danger. He reminded her of Rhode - not strongly, but in the faintest of senses, the idea of innocence lost, of that quiet, murderous force sleeping inside of her. "I think we have met. Online. My name is Kristoph Gavin. Do you remember?"

[ombrosa]

It took Kai to recall the name; without a face to put to it in her memories, it was considerably more difficult than she imaged it would be. She furrowed her brow and looked off into the distance for a moment, her lips moving slightly as if speaking to herself.

"Oh yes!" she then said with a small start. "Kai remembers, it was us that told you she cleaned, yes?" Reaching out, she pressed both hands against the edge of table and leaned, peering at the older man who seemed to mildly amused with her for some reason. On her wrist Sky High clicked it wings once and then twice, still unsatisfied that she was no longer in danger. Out of the corner of her mouth she whispered to it, "behave," and then smiled at the man named Kristoph Gavin.

[myscarsmiles]

"On occasion, I do," he said and smiled, curious about a number of things about this girl that were impossible to see through the internet. True, he hadn't expected a tall, lean, professional assassin to speak in such a childish way, but it seemed that Kai was in fact, all she had sounded to be online, which was an incredible rarity. She was a scrawny teenage girl who - talked to herself?

Hmm, curious.

"It's satisfying, wouldn't you agree?" He looked up at the waiters running around, and caught the eye of one of them, giving them his half-empty plate and teacup. "On a very visceral level."

[ombrosa]

Visceral, hmmm, that was an odd word, and not the kind of word that Kai would ever use to describe cleaning. Narrowing her eyes, she moved so that she could kneel with one knee on the bench he was sitting on. She steadied herself with a hand against the table and leaned into him to give the man a tentative sniff. Her eyebrow quirked up. Seemed harmless enough. On her wrist, Sky High seemed to chirp with approval.

"Don't look like a cleaner." Her eyes wandered to his perfect hands. "Your hands are too soft, not like Prosciutto's at all. Not like Kai's." She looked at him suspiciously. "How do you clean with such pretty hands?"

[myscarsmiles]

"Come, sit with me." He gestured to the booth across from him, wondering how uncomfortable it must have been to half-lean on the seat and half-not. Perhaps not uncomfortable now, but it seemed like one leg could get tired quick. He opened his mouth to say something, however, he shut it and listened to her question.

Absently he admired his own manicure. Hokuto was the best.

"I prefer to use tools," he said, in a low voice. It wasn't that most of his staff didn't know his side-projects, but he would hardly want to scare away the few who did or any customers. "So my hands stay nice."

[ombrosa]

The quizzical look on Kai's face lingered, even as she cautiously slipped into the booth across from him. The man was so proper and polite, and there was no indication of the darkness that she saw in those who had to clean. A certain hardness, like quartz, a sharp glimmering in the eyes -- she had seen it in Prosciutto and Risotto and even Nariko. Kai could only imagine she had the same somewhere buried deep behind her madness, but this man, this Kristoph Gavin. Everything was neat and crisp, no rough edges, no hard surfaces, nothing that told her anything beyond the fact that he strove for perfection

[myscarsmiles]

"You see, Kai," he continued, folding his arms on the table and brushing a rogue strand of hair behind his ear. "It's very important to me to not look like a cleaner. That way, people don't think I'm very dangerous. They just think I'm a gentleman. When I worry about things like my nice hands and my suit, people don't think I clean."

He cocked his head to the side a bit and looked at Kai. "Yes.. you are very clever."

[ombrosa]

"Ah," she said with slow realization as Gavin spoke, her smirk spreading widely -- somewhat deadly -- across her face. She was, not entirely, like a small, feral animal who suddenly, in catching its prey, decides to toy with it rather than eat it. "Gavin is clever too." Sky High clicked its wings in reply. She paused, and raised an eyebrow at it, as if it had said something quite interesting. Kai nodded slightly and leaned again across the table, her voice a low whisper.

"Would you like to see? Not cleaning, but just to see how it works?" she asked, her eyes moving back and forth to catch the occasional passer-by. "We've very good. Prosciutto says, one day, maybe the best. But you musn't tell a soul."

[myscarsmiles]

"Yes, I would like to see."

It was always curious to see how other people went about doing their thing, indeed, and this was no exception. Especially considering Kai's most certainly childish but still somewhat unsettling nature. "I won't tell anyone. I'mr really, really good at keeping secrets."

[ombrosa]

"Good," Kai said with childish firmness in her voice, "otherwise, we'd have to clean you too

[myscarsmiles]

"Ha!" Kristoph smiled, nodding his head delightfully at Kai. "I would most certainly not like it if you cleaned me up."

His eyes followed hers to the glass of water, watching as it quickly frosted over and as the sudden crack appeared in it. "That's...very impressive." His voice had a certain reverent quality to it, admiring the invisible display of strength.

[ombrosa]

Kai smiled, clearly satisfied with the man's reaction; it felt good to bask in. Perhaps not nearly as warm as the feeling she got whenever Prosciutto praised her, but still the feeling was wonderful and comforting in his absence. "There are terrible terrible things in the world, yes? Things that even smart men like you cannot see. Prosciutto says that why we clean. We have a gift, yes, and must use it to survive."

She paused and waggled her head around vaguely for a moment, looking up at the ceiling as if she'd lost something. "Pay bills. Buy food. A nice dress of Kai when she's good. That is why Kai cleans. For Prosciutto. For money." Another grin, more distracted this time. "For fun."

[myscarsmiles]

"I would even say that the most terrible things in the world are invisible." Kristoph nodded, waving a dismissive hand at the waiter who was coming over with a garbage can to toss the glass away. It could stay, for now.

Kai was connected to Prosciutto? That was a curious little note indeed, though there was something about both of them that had a note familiarity to it. He couldn't figure out what it was, but it didn't really matter right now, anyway; the connection was enough.

"That is what gifts are for, mm? To get ahead. To keep yourself up and running and a little ahead of everyone else." He paused, thoughtfully, then asked. "Do you like Prosciutto?"