all i see is green lights

Inori was halfway to sweet-talking the vendor down when a familiar voice cut in. He didn’t even bother hiding the way his expression soured, rolling the carrot between his fingers before shifting his gaze up. “Well, well, well… look who the cat dragged in.” He sighed. “Figures. I should’ve known a good morning was too much to ask for.”

Adem’s little comment about bargains earned only a light chuckle that was dry as sand. “You drive a hard bargain? Cute. Last I checked, you weren’t the one holding the carrot. Or maybe you just like inserting yourself where you’re not wanted. Hmmm, explains a lot.” The vendor shifted uncomfortably, caught between them, but Inori didn’t let up. “Strawberries, blueberries… why stop there? Maybe toss in a filet mignon, too. Put it all on my tab, yeah? That how you do things these days?”

Inori blinked at her, carrot still held in his hand like he’d forgotten what to do with it. “Oh… you actually like oden? As in, you know what it is?” His mouth went from a surprised 'oh' to a toothy grin. “Well, I’ll be damned. Guess now I really gotta go to the market now and make some. Can’t have someone looking at me like that and then letting ‘em down, can I?”

He leaned an elbow on the edge of the stall, giving her a once-over that was more amused than serious. “But careful there. Offering to trade for a bowl? Dangerous game. I mean, I know my cooking’s good, but don’t go promising something you can’t afford to lose. You might walk away with less than you came with.” His grin made it hard to tell if he was joking or not, but the sparkle in his eye leaned toward mischief over menace.

❛ ☾ ◟━ TIME: evening

❛ ☾ ◟━ STATUS: closed for @credxnce — INORI NAMINO

Desmond wasn't the type to forget a face. Years of training and being a Navy Seal made him aware of his surroundings and the people he'd meet—keeping tabs on who mattered. Therefore, while he was coming back from a nightly jog with Maki, a familiar face got his attention to the point where he slowed down and continued observing them. It wasn't until he remembered his special ops mission in Libya that he started getting flashbacks of the raid. Anger fuelling and ears ringing, he knew better than to be confrontational at this time of the night. However, it didn't matter. He wanted to make sure that his eyes deceived him and the expression of 'it's a small world after all' was completely false.

Gripping Maki's leash tightly, he gently tugged on it to walk over to the green haired individual and carelessly asked, "—You think dyeing your hair would give you a fresh new start?"

Inori was halfway through lighting a cigarette when the voice hit him just like the smoke of the burning oil from that day. The flame died in the wind between his fingers. For a second, the street lamps seemed too bright, the air too thin. He knew that voice. He’d wanted to forget it. All of it. Those shouts and screams… the failure of the raid, of himself. Libya had been one of his first times in command of the crew. He supposed he should be thankful to the North Star above that only a few lives were lost. But even one was too many.

“You know,” she said, sauntering over, “I wasn’t going to do anything. I was having a nice afternoon. Drinking shitty tea. Watching you preen.” She stopped just short of the man’s hand, where it rested on the table, trembling slightly. Her smile bloomed then, sharp, lazy, and a little bored. “But now I’m curious. Did you really think you could get away with it?” Her voice was soft, laced with a kind of cruel amusement. “Or were you just so sure no one here had the balls to follow through?”

Then, without warning. Crack. With a clean, vicious swing, she split flesh like it was paper. The man screamed, and his hand stayed on the table. Nozomi leaned in. “You can keep the lie,” she said, voice like silk soaked in blood. “But you can’t keep the hand that told it.” And as she turned back to Inori, she flicked a few drops of blood from her fingers and said, with a flat, irritated drawl, “Don’t give me that look again. I don’t do tricks on command.”

Inori let out something that was between a sigh and just a soft exhale. "What exactly did I expect,” he muttered, glancing down into his now-cooling tea. “Of course it would go like this.”

The man’s screaming, while understandable, was starting to fray the atmosphere and made his tea taste bitter. Inori leaned forward and with all the ceremony of brushing lint off his sleeve, shoved the twitching stump of an arm off the mahjong table. It hit the floor with a wet sound that made one of the newer servers gag in the corner.

“Please be quiet,” he said with a kind of withering calm. “You’re disturbing the other patrons.” Then, almost lazily, he dabbed at a few blood-spattered tiles with a cloth from the table’s corner. “And get your dirty blood off my table. You call yourself a blue blood? Really?”

Staff had already begun to move, wordlessly. One with gloves and a tea towel. One with the mop. Another with a fresh teapot, as if that might somehow balance the scene. He turned back to Nozomi, now sipping a freshly brewed cup of tea. “What? It wasn’t a command,” he said with a small shrug. “It was merely a suggestion. You looked bored.”

And as the last scream was choked into silence by a waiter stuffing the tea towel into the man's mouth as he was dragged away, and his blood was all but cleaned up, Inori began to reshuffle the tiles and build the wall. “So,” he murmured, flicking a glance to the remaining players. They had stiffened in their seats and hadn't dared to move. “Shall we start a three-player match?”