Jake 2.0: Interactions

----------------------------------

Chapter One - Sticks

----------------------------------

Life is the people you meet.

Skkit, skkkit, skitt.

The knife dances in a carefully choreographed series of well-practiced, precise arcs.

Truly an art, Jake thinks, in the experienced hands of a…wielder.

After silently sliding onto a stool, the young man continues to watch the perfectly measured culinary violence being dished out by the sushi chef a moment longer before speaking.

“I can see why you like working here. It’s nice.”

Sunlight streams in through the windows and the air is warm with conversations. It’s pleasant. Happiness in a word.

Another flick of the wrist, scrape of the knife, and the rose of flesh shifts onto a plate. The plate glides to a stop before the gangly young man with the goofy smile and wide brown eyes.

“Sashimi,” the chef explains. “Japanese delicacy,” he adds.

Jake stares at the plate. It might be art, but he wouldn’t eat it if his life depended on it.

“Salmon. You know, swimming in the sea?”

“I know.”

Jake gulps, swallowing nothing but the lump in his throat. The chef studies the patron’s mortified expression, then chuckles.

“You don’t like raw fish?”

“No.” Jake thinks he might be sick.

The artist with the knife is armed with a smirk. He wipes his hands on a towel and it is a Junshi assassin who returns with a paper container.

“Maybe Diane will.”

----------------------------------

She does. She uses chopsticks, too.

----------------------------------

Jake is back at the sushi bar next sunrise.

The assassin doesn’t look up from his work; filleting seafood with a vengeance. With passion. There’s no mercy in those hands.

“So, did it work?”

“Did what work?”

“The plan-”

Jake cuts him off.

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

“The correct phrase would be ‘thank you.’”

Jake wonders how the knife can move so fast without claiming any fingers as a human sacrifice.

A dozen more salmon roses bloom and the chef is smiling too.

----------------------------------