☾ 009 ☾ TEXT + ACTION

[wetworking]

action;

[Boredom was an interesting thing. Hazuki was sure some Contractors must experience it- she was sure she had, at times. In this City most of all. And if it did not interfere with the basic tenants of her personal safety, she did not see anything wrong with trying to erase that irksome thing.

She had very few hobbies, however. Perhaps she should get a new one. ... If only something out there seemed interesting.

As it was, she was curbing that odd instinct by walking the streets. Taking advantage, some might call it. Perverse retribution was what Hazuki thought of it as. She, whose contract required her to kiss men so intensely after using her powers, uncursed, and the rest affected?

It was almost funny.]

text [public];

Is this supposed to be emotional, or physical?

I can't tell.


[ooc; feel free to encounter Hazuki anywhere in the city. However, if you're a man she will... actively avoid being near you if you seem cursed.]

Comments

audio;

[signatures]

Is what?

[wetworking]

This "curse".

audio 5eva etc

[signatures]

Ah, the kissing bit?

word

[wetworking]

Precisely.

[signatures]

It could be both. How do you feel about the people you're kissing?

[wetworking]

It's like winning a prize.

[flensing]

[Anna has been, truthfully, avoiding being out in public lately. She feels nervous about who might be watching her, taking stock of her, making plans for her. She knows it's a paranoia, something scarred into her by bad memories, but those dark things are so strong that she can't justify disregarding them. She also can't justify hiding, a life devoted to fear is no life at all, and she's been blessed with this opportunity to live.

Still, she feels... reticent for company, but she also can't justify ignoring Miss Hazuki.

If nothing else, she pauses to wave, smiling faintly.]

[wetworking]

[Hazuki, meanwhile, slows the moment she notices Anna. There is no reason she should feel so attached- no logical reason, and that is slightly troubling to a Contractor, whose brain is based on the logical and the tactical.

So removed from emotion is the mind of a Contractor that she wouldn't be able to even begin identifying why she felt that strange attachment. (Namely, that Anna was what Yoko might have been like, if Yoko had lived. But she hadn't. The torture had killed her, and she'd ended up a bloody, broken corpse, not a traumatized woman struggling to regain a spark. It was like looking at Yoko, if Yoko had lived.)

Yoko had been...]

Anna.

[Called out, even though she had no logical reason to hail her, stop her, speak to her.]

[flensing]

[Oh. That is her name after all. Anna comes to a complete stop to wait for the woman.

She knows that Miss Hazuki had made her cry, the very first time they had met, but the tears had come more from the woman's accurate interpretation of her injuries than it had from fear. Maybe she should be more afraid of Hazuki than she is, especially considering the sort of injuries she had come in with during that curse... but Anna doesn't know too many who can understand what torture looks like. Hazuki is someone who won't ask her difficult questions about it, she already knows. There's no lingering secret.]

Hello, Miss Hazuki. Are you having a good day?

[wetworking]

[Indeed, there is nothing like that between them. If she were not a Contractor, Hazuki might have wondered things. Why had Anna been tortured, what had occurred? But she wasn't, and so that was Anna's business. It wasn't something for her to butt in to or inquire after.]

Decent enough.

[The answer is neutral. She's been looking for something to drown the small, irrational part of her brain in, and she's been finding it.]

You seemed occupied- did I disturb you?

[The questions that did not pry. Did I disturb you, not "what were you thinking about?" or "Why do you seem so-"]

[flensing]

[In some ways, Anna wouldn't have been able to answer those questions. The senselessness of it, the unrelenting selfishness, it defied understanding. Sometimes that was what hurt the most.]

No, not at all. I was heading home. Or--

[She pauses with an uncertain look, thinking something over, and when she speaks there's an amount of bemused self-effacement.]

I may need to stop in town and look at furniture. Danish and I moved into a house, it's very empty right now.

[wetworking]

[It's so domestic, Hazuki almost doesn't know what to say. That's what you get being a government assassin and a yakuza daughter. She has never shopped for furniture.]

How is the house?

[That was an appropriate question, wasn't it?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He doesn't find the curse amusing. Childish thrills. Irritating consequences. His sole objective is to get off the streets. It was a tactical error to be out after midnight. He knew when curses struck. But the dearth of wetwork - of purpose - left him antsy. ]

[ And making mistakes. ]

[ Noticing the familiar woman, he nods politely. Focused on nothing but getting home. ]

[wetworking]

[Polite.

It's a joke. She knows who he is, and even with how things turned out... she cannot look upon him kindly. Even if he hadn't killed her, he had tortured her. He had led to what killed her.

She stops walking. And she stares. Cold.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The glare is like a palpable chill. He stops. Stares back. But with Li's look of guileless confusion. There's something about this woman's manner. A degree of -- recognition. Could she know who he is? What he is? Or is did he just encounter her in a bad mood? ]

[ Coincidence, in a Contractor's line of work, is nonexistent. ]

...Um, is something wrong?

[wetworking]

[Is there something wrong?

She wonders. Is his act truly that good, or is he from a different timeline? The way to tell would be by opening up to him- but that's something she does to... no one.

So she'll keep watching.]

No.

1/2

[mortemscintilla]

[ To open up to him would place them on equal footing. Except Contractors focus on advantage and leverage. She has that advantage - unawares to him. She knows his identity. Has future information about his world. If he knew, he'd be determined to extract it from her. ]

[ But he doesn't. So he'll go by instinct. ]

[ And watch her in turn. ]

[mortemscintilla]

Are you sure? [ Innocent smile. ] You seem ...upset.

[ Contractors are rarely 'upset'. Will she rise to the subtle jab? Or brush it off? The latter, in many ways, will deepen his suspicions. ]

[wetworking]

[He's a better actor than she is. She was usually assigned strictly to assassinations more so than undercover. He was said to be special, had to be, to be involved with Izanami but-]

It's nothing. You reminded me of someone is all.

[She makes a fake expression of her own, brushing it off- but it's blatantly more fake than his had been.]

[synanthrope]

[She's taking a walk. It's not like kisses - men, women, it doesn't matter - matter to Saya, so she's not really caring who she runs in to or doesn't on the way.]

[wetworking]

[This woman is familiar, though she knows very few things first hand. She is straight forward. She suggested a threesome with herself and Tony Stark.

... Interesting, to say the least.

Interesting enough to slow as she sights her, dipping her head.]

[synanthrope]

[Saya looks over at her; noticing her, it seems, for the first time.]

The woman who kissed Tony.

[wetworking]

[Hazuki just looks back, completely deadpan. This is her mildly intrigued look.]

The woman who suggested a ménage à trois.

[synanthrope]

[A very slight shrug]

No point now, I suppose.

[wetworking]

I wasn't interested in including him either way.

[Honesty is always the best policy. And hey, he's not even here to be offended.]